The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein may have one of the smartest responses to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remarks.
In a blog post this morning, Klein seizes on Romney’s remarks that he’ll never win over a segment of the population that he says is dependent on the government. In Romney’s words, he’ll “never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
The personal responsibility argument was inevitable. Republicans at all levels of government frequently employ it, on and off the campaign trail. But as Klein points out, it’s a misguided talking point at best:
“The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life,” Klein writes. “You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier, that give you time and space to focus on what you want to focus on.”
Klein’s post is worth a read. It offers good perspective for an election year where programs that impact the poor and taxes are an issue.
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2012.
A better read is from a blog by Bob Johnson of the Daily VOS:
I’m confused. Is it GOOD or BAD for Americans to avoid paying taxes?
By Bob Johnson
I know we’re not permitted to see Mitt Romney’s tax returns. We just aren’t. So quit asking.
But I believe we’ve been told by conservatives and Republicans, including Mitt Romney, that not only is there nothing wrong with using available laws to not pay income taxes, it is downright patriotic to legally keep our money free from the evil clutches of BIG GOVERNMENT!
You can read the full blog here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/18/1133568/-I-m-confused-Is-it-GOOD-or-BAD-for-Americans-to-avoid-paying-taxes
NOTE: in addition to Johnson’s thoughts consider the following…according to the Tax Policy Center, significant numbers of the higher-income earners are among those not paying federal income tax. The data shows that in 2011, 78,000 tax filers with incomes between $211,000 and $533,000 paid no income taxes; 24,000 households with incomes of $533,000 to $2.2 million paid no income taxes, and 3,000 tax filers with incomes above $2.2 million paid no income taxes.)
It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that folks paying no income tax will have less inclination to care what the taxes of those who pay them are used for. Someone else’s money is always cheap. The bottom line of Romney’s acontextually filmed comments is essentially that these are not the group of people ikely to be swayed by anything Romney has to say. And Pres. Obama is banking on this; his longtanding redistributionalist philosophy depends on it. The life of Julia depends on it. His active marketing of dependancy on food stamps attest to it.