JONATHAN COHN FEBRUARY 1, 2012
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Even Mitt Romney’s defenders admit that he chose his words poorly when, on Wednesday morning, he told CNN that “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” But many of these defenders say the quote is innocuous once you read it in context and realize what Romney was really trying to say.
Well, I’ve read the quote in context and have a pretty good idea what Romney was trying to say. I would hardly describe it as innocuous.
The full exchange appears below this item. It’s long, so here I’m just going to quote the key passage:
I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.”
To give Romney his due, he clearly wasn't saying that he was indifferent to the very poor. And I assume that, deep in his heart, he is not. Instead, Romney was saying that, as president, he wouldn’t make the very poor a top priority, because they are doing well enough, at least relative to the middle class.
But where on earth did Romney get that idea? The statistics tell a rather different story. Last year, for example, more than half of all children in poor households experienced a major hardship such as hunger or living in overcrowded living conditions, according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And if statistics like that are too abstract for Romney, perhaps he should spend some time in a clinic for the uninsured or a soup kitchen. If he did, he'd discover that life for the very poor is still very hard. They struggle just to pay for food and heat, let alone rent. Most of these people get by – people almost always find a way to get by – but it’s not a life that Romney or anybody else would want for themselves or their loved ones.
Romney is correct that a safety net exists for these people: Food stamps, and housing vouchers, and public health insurance save countless Americans from even worse hardship and, in the best of cases, help lift them into the middle class, where they stay. But the programs are not generous enough, or expansive enough, to do the job adequately. In most states, for example, only mothers and children are eligible for basic health insurance under Medicaid. Housing vouchers and subsidized child care, frequently essential for mothers who want to work, typically have long waiting lists. The value and reach of cash assistance (welfare) has actually declined in relative terms.
And while Romney vowed “to repair” holes in the safety net, the policies he has proposed would have the very opposite effect. Romney has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, effectively taking subsidized health insurance away from about 30 million people slated to get it starting in 2014. Romney has also pledged to reduce non-defense spending to 16 percent of gross domestic product. That target would, by Romney's own admission, require half a trillion dollar in cuts in 2016, above and beyond cuts already scheduled to take place next year.
There's a legitimate conservative argument in favor of reforming safety net programs and, in the process, realizing efficiencies that would make them less expensive. (John McCormack gives a version of it in the Weekly Standard.) And while I don't usually find that argument convincing, I believe well-intentioned people can disagree about its merits. Romney's plan, however, would require cuts that go well beyond any realistic expectation of savings from efficiency. As noted here and by the Center on Budget, there's simply no way to take that much money out of social services, in such a short time span, without reducing the assistance that people get and very much need.
But all of this misses the real problem with Romney’s statements: His suggestion that the safety net matters to only the a small class of people, constituting less than 10 percent of the population, who have the problems he associates with the "very poor." Hardship is actually a lot more widespread than that. According to the latest Census figures, 15 percent of Americans and 22 percent of children live below the poverty line. Keep in mind that the poverty line in 2011 was around $22,000 in annual income for a family of four. That doesn’t go very far.
Actually, even twice the poverty level, or about $44,000 a year in 2011, doesn’t go very far. And, according to the same census figures, nearly half of all American households have incomes below that level. These people depend on public programs, too, as do quite a few people making even more money but who are still a long ways from being rich. These people need government to provide college loans, public schools, and Medicare and Medicaid, just to name a few well-known services. (If you don’t think Medicaid helps the middle class, go visit a nursing home and ask how many residents have children in the middle class, who, if not for Medicaid, would be paying for their parents’ care out of their own pockets.)
Romney’s political strategy here seems clear to me: He’s trying to drive a wedge between the poor and the middle class, convincing the latter that they lose out to the former when Democrats are in charge. And the strategy may work. It's certainly helped Republicans before. But the big beneficiary of Romney's plan to reorder fiscal priorities is not the middle class. It's the very wealthy, who would get substantial tax benefits and who will usually be fine with weakened public services.
So maybe Romney's quote is misleading after all. It suggests that only the poor would be afterthoughts in a Romney presidency, when even many non-poor Americans would be forgotten, too.
follow me on twitter @CitizenCohn
And now, as promised, here is the full exchange with CNN's Soledad O'Brien:
Mitt Romney: “They want someone who they have confidence in. I believe I will be able to instill that confidence in the American people. By the way, I’m in this race, because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.”
Soledad O’Brien: “I know I said last question. You said I’m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. And I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. Can you explain that?”
Mitt Romney: “Well, you had to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have the safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them. The challenge right now — we will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor. And there’s no question, it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle income Americans. My campaign — you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich, that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That’s not my focus. My focus is on middle income Americans, retirees living on Social Security, people who can’t find work, folks that have kids getting ready to go to college. These are the people who have been most badly hurt during the Obama years.We have a very ample safety net, and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”
43 comments
He's going to convince the House right wing Tea Party gang to fix holes in the safety net . With what $$ in any event. He thinks the people up to lets say the 90 or 95th percentile are struggling . That's understandable considering where he is on the income scale. He wants to take away the rights of workers to bargain collectively and leave it up to chance whether we have health care . I am gaining confidence that as this campaign continues he will melt down from an endless series of gaffs. He 's playing wedge politics but he doesn't have the skill to keep his game straight through this long journey.
- alanwilkov
February 2, 2012 at 12:40am
The Democrats should put Romney's line "I'm not concerned about the very poor" in an ad. He said it, and he means exactly that. The poor are simply out of his consciousness. While he was president, G.W. Bush commented on our lowest economic class , too. "I don't understand poor people. I wish I could." Uh-huh. Another quote from Bush shows us how in touch Republicans are with real Americans. Right after he started his second term as president, Bush decided to use some of his "political capital," as he phrased it, so he traveled to middle America to try to talk people into agreeing to his plan to privatize Social Security. In Omaha, Nebraska a woman told him that she had 3 jobs. THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs? MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes. THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.) When are the Republicans going to come up with a presidential candidate who understands real Americans? Bush wasn't that guy, and neither is Romney.
- magboy47.
February 2, 2012 at 12:55am
Uh huh. That about sums it up.
- Sophia
February 2, 2012 at 2:27am
The wedge between the poor and the middle class already exists, at least among conservatives. Numerous studies of the Tea Party movement show that the Work Ethic is the value system conservatives rely on most to both separate themselves from those lower down on the economic ladder as well as to excuse themselves from any sympathy or empathy they might feel for the poor or obligations they might have to do something for them. The Tea Party has made a particular issue of government spending and how there is too much of it. Asked to square the circle of their support for programs like Social Security and Medicare that benefit them, while demanding cuts in "welfare" programs that benefit those unlike them, conservatives easily explain away (in their own minds) their hypocrisy by making a moral argument: I earned my benefits through long years of hard work and toil while those "freeloaders" on welfare who vote "Democrat" didn't. This is the needle Romney is trying to thread: He can't be worried about the poor because his own lower and middle class base doesn't think the government should do ANYTHING for the poor because, fundamentally as Newt Gingrich would say, they don't "deserve" it Just like the arguments conservatives make against gays -- that their sexual preference is a lifestyle they "chose" and were not given at birth -- the right wing conservatives Romney is trying to win over believe that poverty is the residue of bad morals and bad work habits not the collateral damage of an economy that fails to work for everybody.
- TedFrier
February 2, 2012 at 6:46am
Romney was saying what Barbara Bush was saying about the poor when they were packed unpleasantly like refugees into the Houston Astrodome during Hurricane Katrina.
In other words, they are not people like us, they like being miserable.- Nusholtz
February 2, 2012 at 7:14am
And they (the Republicans) accuse their critics of practicing class warfare. That's rich.
- paskunac
February 2, 2012 at 7:49am
Sheesh. I'm not even a Romney fan but this whole " They're a bunch of 'Let them eat cakers' feels a bit like a conceit at the expense of probably fairly decent folks that happen to have money. There is a touch of obscenity to the notion of pounding my compassionate chest while standing on the backs of decent people. I can say with a high degree of confidence that lack of money never made me more saintly. Life was simpler though in that there was clarity in priorities. Having money never made me a bigger sinner. It opens up possibilities and problems that are unique to its station. I would hazard a guess that Romney and the Bush families are likely fairly damned conscientious in some of their allocations on behalf of the less fortunate.
- jacko
February 2, 2012 at 8:09am
"I would hazard a guess that Romney and the Bush families are likely fairly damned conscientious in some of their allocations on behalf of the less fortunate." Your idea of "damned conscientious" is to relentlessly manipulate public policy to the advantage of the wealthy (including oneself) and the disadvantage of everyone else, then give a small fraction of one's resulting income back through charitable donations? This behavior is indeed "damned", but not in the way you think.
- Fishpeddler
February 2, 2012 at 9:23am
Romney's comment is especially idiotic because it practically writes ad copy for both liberals and conservatives. On the one hand, liberals (like Cohn) can spin it as Romney being clueless as to the actual plight of the poor by assuming that the current safety net for the poorest tenth (or it is the poorest twentieth?) is adequate to meet their needs and that they are doing "fine" living in poverty. On the other hand, conservatives like Jim DeMint and Romney's primary opponents can spit it as Romney being satisfied with the dependency of the poor on social programs that prevent them from rising into the middle class, and attack him as an apologist for the welfare state. I think that, for Romney today, the latter argument presents more peril than the former, as it could give his opponents more opportunities to attack him via the free media in the lull between debates.
- wildboy
February 2, 2012 at 9:23am
Sloppy writing. "deep in his heart" assumes facts not in evidence.
- miceelf
February 2, 2012 at 10:32am
We sometimes forget about the working poor. The Right thinks about them now and then. I've seen more than one person in the media grousing about the Earned Income Tax Credit that low-income workers get. I thought the Right wanted Americans to pay as few taxes as possible. Oh, I'm sorry, they mean rich Americans. My bad.
- magboy47.
February 2, 2012 at 10:40am
Did anybody catch that Romney said "the Democrat Party"? I've never heard him sound so Fox News crackerish. I guess he has to go there. He'll have to explain, though, his belief in a system to people who spew the words Democrat Party and teleprompter. Isn't Romney a Socialist for depending on a social safety net for the poor?
- gwhitaker
February 2, 2012 at 11:04am
Note the pronoun in this sentence: "I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine." "They," not "we." Romney is not among the very rich who don't need help, he's one of the richies who still needs a bit more to get by. That's why his tax proposal would cut his own taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the very rich - they're on their own and you can call Romney heartless all you want and you'll never, ever convince him to give the very rich one more penny in tax cuts. And they call Obama a class warrior.
- GeoffG
February 2, 2012 at 11:16am
"We sometimes forget about the working poor. The Right thinks about them now and then. I've seen more than one person in the media grousing about the Earned Income Tax Credit that low-income workers get. I thought the Right wanted Americans to pay as few taxes as possible. Oh, I'm sorry, they mean rich Americans. My bad." The Earned Income Tax Credit is a conservative creation, just like the health-insurance mandate. As is typical, the GOP was for it before they were against it, flip-flopping all over the place, but it's tough for them to not be hypocrites (make that impossible).
- tmmats
February 2, 2012 at 11:24am
This isn't so much Romney's "Let them eat cake" moment as it is an excellent source of ammunition with which to barrage Romney in the general election while debating policy. What he said is fairly innocuous, he expressed no hatred or resentment against the luck ducky poor people. What he said sort of jives with his policy proposals to balance the budget by eliminating all that wasteful, excessive spending on the poorest of the poor. The part that doesn't jive is claiming to be open to fixing the holes in the safety net for the poorest while promising to balance the budget by slashing their excessive and wasteful benefits, which America can't afford. I'm not looking forward to seeing him try to square the circle.
- GSpinks
February 2, 2012 at 12:07pm
Does anyone honestly expect a guy who earns more in one day than 55% of working Americans to actually have a clue as to what it is like to have to struggle to pay rent, put food on the table, and keep the water and heat turned on? If anyone thinks that Mittens would is simply projecting upon him a piousness that does not exist. When Romney says "he doesn't care about the poor" we don't have to parse his words or look for deeper textual meanings. His qualifications only obfuscate and distract from the inherent disdain he has for the "others" in America. In this case, the "others" being those people that are poor, the working poor and the 95% of Americans that continue to live paycheck to paycheck.
- singlspeed
February 2, 2012 at 12:17pm
The discussion about Romney's alleged gaffe only skims the surface of the problem. Compared to the REALLY, REALLY poor and suffering in places such as Darfur, Ivory Coast, Foxcan factories in China, etc., etc. [pick your favourite dismals], even most of the suffering poor in America are wealthy as kingly paupers. It's really a bitch/bastard. Why not hog all the cake for yourself?
- skahn
February 2, 2012 at 12:35pm
if Romney doesn't care about the rich either, then he should be fine with the rich paying the same effective tax rate as the Middle class of whom he is so suddenly enamored.
- blackton
February 2, 2012 at 12:57pm
if Romney doesn't care about the rich either, then he should be fine with the rich paying the same effective tax rate as the Middle class of whom he is so suddenly enamored.
- blackton
February 2, 2012 at 12:57pm
Daily Show segment on Romney's statement: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-1-2012/indecision-2012---mitt-romney-on-the-poor
- dsimon
February 2, 2012 at 2:21pm
Man, Romney is stinking up the joint - have we ever had a more incompetent retail politician ever this close to the Presidency?
- WandreyCer
February 2, 2012 at 2:49pm
oops, sorry for that second "ever."
- WandreyCer
February 2, 2012 at 2:50pm
WandreyCer I like your use of the phrase "retail" politician, because Romney's manic behavior on the trail has always reminded me of someone on the Home Shopping Network! I wonder if that is even his real voice? The guy makes me tired just watching him.
- TedFrier
February 2, 2012 at 2:55pm
Has he gone a day without saying something spontaneously stupid? I don't like modern Republicans, but they are often talented demogouges and skiiled politicians, much better than Democrats. I thought that was a basic requirement for a politician? Romney immediately irritates or steps in it, he cannot help himself. He's a rank incompetent at basic politics 101. I cannot fathom someone so fundamentally clumsy representing America in the world.
- WandreyCer
February 2, 2012 at 3:16pm
Jill and TedFrier are right: he's a lousy retail politician apart from his bad substance. Even the greenest pol with a smidge of natural political acumen would not have said such a thing which was rhetorically terrible and inconsonant with Conservative principles about helping the poor. He can be effective, as these things go, when he's on message via a script but when he's winging it he's constantly seeming to put his wing tips in his mouth. It's quite astonishing to me that after all these years of preparing for this political time for himself and for how much he wants to portray himself as a conservative he has not really internalized the conservative world view. Why is that, I wonder. He's not, clearly, a stupid man. Finally, I found it interesting to read how his supporters in the chattering class, say Jennifer Rubin, those who refused to concede his blunder, are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to downplay the reality of this unforced and significant error. It's of such significance, I think, that it's conceivable that upcoming primary voters who otherwise migh have simlply settled on Romney as inevitable might have second thoughts, though I ultimately think he'll still prevail as the Republican nominee and that "this too shall pass."
- basman
February 2, 2012 at 3:47pm
P.S. Might this blunder as a matter of conservative principles be because he really is at bottom a Massachusetts moderate who is fundamentally a pragmatic problem solver ever more than he is a true ideologue and that the woeful Republican theory for helping the poor is meaningless to him?
- basman
February 2, 2012 at 3:51pm
I think basman may come close to it, but there is another tweak that hearkens back to what Wandrey was saying. This guy is a manager type and not a political type. Mitt communicates all the genuine feeling of someone standing next to your table saying "I'm Stephanie and I'll be your server today," and his weaving back and forth from position to position, trying to please his audience of the moment, reminds me of Colonel Cathcart and General Dreedle in Catch-22 (this from memory): Yossarian is naked, standing in the line to receive medals. Dreedle (in surprise): Colonel, this man is naked! Cathcart: I'll put him on a charge immediately, sir. Dreedle: Ah, what the hell, if an officer wants to receive his medal naked, what's it to us? Cathcart: My sentiments exactly, sir! It's as if he learned politics from a book (or an online college). I have the strong impression he doesn't even get when he's being utterly unconvincing, which most politicians do.
- ironyroad
February 2, 2012 at 6:36pm
Has he offended poor people because he showed he doesn't understand their suffering or has he offended right-thinking people because he showed he doesn't understand their empathy?
- dmresnick
February 2, 2012 at 7:27pm
Irony nails it to the wall.
- WandreyCer
February 2, 2012 at 8:03pm
miceelf: Is there a reason you're bashing Cohn for assuming Romney's essential decency and compassion for his fellow human beings? The assumption that Romney is not indifferent to the poor "deep in his heart" doesn't strike me as sloppy writing but as a sign of Cohn's own generosity of spirit...something I wish more writers on the conservative side would show to Obama instead of presuming malicious intent on his part.
- dmishkin
February 2, 2012 at 10:21pm
One of my favorite cheesy movie cliche scenes is from Indiana Jones, when the villain does the whip brandishing and then Indiana simply shoots him. It strikes me as not utterly impossible that Mitt may succeed in so tangling himself up with his tongue as the whip that he beats himself to death with his own tongue, while Obama looks on with his trademark expression of grave, kindly concern.
- skahn
February 2, 2012 at 11:31pm
dmishkin, I am with mice on this. Romney is a cipher, impossible to read. I think that Santorum genuinely is concerned with the poor and disadvantaged, but his proscriptions on how to deal with the problems are just insane (ie let the church's take care of them) The Mormon church also believes that wealth is an indicator of worth, that the wealthier you are the better kind of person you are (provided you don't smoke, drink, and you do tithe 10%) I think Romney is a technocrat at heart and his complete willingness to lie about so much shows maybe he really doesn't relate.
- blackton
February 3, 2012 at 11:00am
If anyone is still here, here's an interesting take on Romney's misstep and then his apology. It echoes the Jill/Irony explanation but doesn't go to so far as to assimilate Romney to your "I'm your server today." It's by Seth Mandel at the Contentions blog. (btw, I second 02/02/2012 - 10:21pm EDT | dmishkin) ...In the wake of Mitt Romney’s clumsy comment about the “very poor,” conservatives have offered an intriguing explanation: he doesn’t “speak the language” of conservatism, because he’s new to it. I don’t disagree that this is one problem with Romney’s communication, but I think the former governor’s explanation of his comments reveals a slightly different focus. Here is what Romney said to Jon Ralston in Nevada yesterday about the controversy: I misspoke. I’ve said something that is similar to that but quite acceptable for a long time. And you know when you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews now and then you may get it wrong. And I misspoke. Plain and simple. I don’t see a reason this would reassure anyone. It was essentially a defense of what he said, though he wishes he said it better. Questions abound: Why is Romney speaking in the negative at all (i.e. who he will not serve, who he is not concerned about)? Hasn’t he been running for president long enough to have a better grasp of the language of presidential politics? Doesn’t he understand the tension between such comments and trying to lead a conservative political party? But rather than reveal a lack of fluency in “conservaspeak,” I think his comments shine some light on one of the ironies of Romney’s campaign: His hedging and inconsistency make him sound like the typical politician, but in truth his troubles stem from the fact that he isn’t a politician and isn’t running as one. This was best captured in Peter Suderman’s March cover story on Romney for Reason magazine, “Consultant in Chief”: At its core, the business is based on problem solving. Management consultants ask the same basic question over and over again, explains Avik Roy, a former health policy analyst at the Romney-founded firm Bain Capital and current senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute: “If you’ve got a problem, how do you then break the problem down into discrete parts that we can then empirically address?” The job requires narrowing down mountains of data into a few key metrics, then feeding the information back to the client in executive-friendly formats such as PowerPoint slide shows, colorful pie charts, PDFs splattered with bullet points, historical line graphs, and so on. This has actually been one of Romney’s selling points, and it endeared him to conservatives before Obamacare was built on Romney’s own health care reform plan in Massachusetts. But that plan also reveals why conservatives are wary of Romney’s penchant for problem solving: there are no ideological roots to his proposals. Suderman describes the atmosphere in which Romney’s health care reform was hatched: This time, when Romney acted, his process was explicitly consultant driven. He hired a team of health care consultants at McKinsey, a longtime Bain & Company rival, to investigate the state’s uninsured population. The preliminary work on the law was conducted in an ideology-free zone. “They didn’t approach it from the standpoint of ‘free market—yay!’ or ‘equality—yay!’ ” says [Avik] Roy. Instead, it was the usual consultant’s method: “What is the problem? Let’s analytically define the problem.” Romney has always seen himself as a problem solver; that’s just who he is. This doesn’t mean he has no conservative instincts, or that he wouldn’t govern more conservatively in the White House than he did in Massachusetts–I think he does and he would. But he is simply not an ideology-driven person. He wants to identify the problem and find a targeted solution. In some respects, this is a very conservative instinct–he doesn’t have any desire for a government that, at least in his mind, does too much. He is aware of how easily costs can spiral out of control, and he understands the law of unintended consequences–something liberals never have and never will. That’s what was behind his answer on the “very poor” and the “very rich.” He believes he has identified the primary problem area and wants a targeted solution. It may be smart, it may be useful, and some may even think it is what the country needs in this regard. But it is not the language of the politician...
- basman
February 3, 2012 at 11:02am
OK, Romney puts his foot in it, showing his probably true nature in a few short, shocking words; now, it's taking entire books practically to untangle it? Please guys, it is what it is. He accidentally said what he really thinks, especially given his budget plan and his ideas about taxation, which would effectively raise rates on the poor and lower rates on the rich. Net schmet.
- Sophia
February 3, 2012 at 1:27pm
Sophia, one thing in your comment I don't understand. My impression is that in your country save for sales tax and payroll tax, if people have jobs, and perhaps other state tax, the poor pay no or little income tax. What rates would he raise on the poor as a matter of federal tax policy?
- basman
February 3, 2012 at 1:35pm
Basman, thank you for your question. I am not a tax expert, however, I will try to respond accurately. The payroll tax, you already mention. That is not insignificant. It is actually substantial and for working poor, self-employed people, we pay double; we pay the employer's portion as well. Further that tax is capped at a relatively low level; yet, even the very wealthy are entitled to Social Security benefits and Medicare; ergo this is a regressive tax so I am glad you brought it up. Plus, there are STATE income taxes, don't forget. Those can affect even people with very low incomes. As far as Romney's plan is concerned, this might help explain it, perhaps others will discuss also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/mitt-romney-tax-plan_n_1187249.html Other Republican plans want to make us all pay a flat tax, regardless of wealth, ergo, the very poor would pay the same rate as the very rich. I'm sure you can see that in absolute terms this would impose a substantial burden on the poor worker. In fact, as it stands, over a certain limit even disabled and retired people have to pay some taxes on extra income - so - the idea that poor don't pay taxes is untrue. Whether it's payroll or income, earned income or income on investments (as if) we still pay taxes.
- Sophia
February 3, 2012 at 2:44pm
Thanks I'll go over what you said and linked to.
- basman
February 3, 2012 at 2:51pm
Here's another article, written before Romney stepped in it:) http://www.salon.com/2012/01/05/study_romney_plan_raises_taxes_on_poor_families_2/
- Sophia
February 3, 2012 at 2:54pm
Please note: the amounts involved may not seem large but to people for whom pennies are important, they are large. And, poor, old, disabled, working poor people aren't always able to hire good tax accountants. So, we're struggling to figure out long forms by ourselves and often wind up paying taxes on earned income that a person with a good (expensive) accountant would figure out a way to dodge. This may be perfectly legal nevertheless it favors those who can afford an accountant or who are together enough or literate enough to read the tax code. Also an issue, the higher rate paid by people who work for whatever money they have as opposed to investments - well - phooey. Ditto, companies hiring "contractors," ie, we become "self-employed" so they don't have to pay our portion of the payroll tax, ergo, we pay double. Plus, no benefits. Also, note: cuts to "safety nets" result, effectively, in a punitive tax on the poor and on people who couldn't get or couldn't perform a job in the best of times, let alone now. Older people are Exhibit A, of course. The "tax" is simply for existing. It is becoming increasingly difficult. And note, we don't get housing, so forth, like in the UK, medical care, anything like what is taken as a matter of course in Europe. If we get sick, forgetaboutit.
- Sophia
February 3, 2012 at 3:02pm
Sophia, I read both articles, one copying parts of the other. They both repeat this without demonstrating it: ...families with household incomes of less than $20,000 would see their taxes increase by more than 60 percent, said the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group that studied the Romney plan.. What I know about U.S. taxes you could put into a small thimble and still have room for other things but I can't understand how such an increase happens under this plan. I'm curious to know how it does because it on the surface makes no sense to me that it does.
- basman
February 3, 2012 at 4:34pm
In the unlikely event anyone's coming back here, yet another take I found interesting http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/romney-context_620948.html
- basman
February 4, 2012 at 3:46pm
In the unlikely event anyone's coming back here, yet another take I found interesting http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/romney-context_620948.html
- basman
February 4, 2012 at 3:46pm
My "sloppy writing" jibe was meant to be in jest. I know that Cohn was being generous rather than sloppy. But I don't think generosity is warranted when it comes to Romney. Let's just say it's incredibly generous given everything we know about Romney. In addition, 'heart" does imply, usually, a moral core of some kind, and I don't see any evidence that Romney has any such thing.
- miceelf
February 7, 2012 at 2:38pm