“A Political Pickle”: Conservative Media Tries To Save Romney’s Campaign
Mitt Romney sure is lucky that major media outlets exist to serve his interests. After a video came out on Monday afternoon in which Romney denigrates the nearly half the country that did not pay federal income taxes last year as irresponsible and entitled, it seemed he was in quite a political pickle. The comments were unlikely to endear him to swing voters who perceive Romney as an out-of-touch elitist. But since Romney got the idea that 47 percent of the country are lazy Democratic moochers from movement conservatives, he could not repudiate his own remarks.
At first, Fox News had no idea how to respond. They simply ignored the story, even as it dominated coverage on other networks, all through their primetime lineup on Monday. Finally, when Romney gave a press conference after 10 pm, in which he admitted to having made poor word choices but not a substantive error, they showed it. On Tuesday, the Fox Business network hosted Romney for a softball interview with Neil Cavuto. Fox was determined to avoid covering the story except to help Romney burnish his self-defense. Alas, Romney himself did not have much of a defense, other than to say that he had simply been acknowledging that he will not win a landslide victory.
But then, Providence struck. On Tuesday afternoon the Drudge Report released an audio recording from 1998 in which Barack Obama says, “I actually believe in redistribution.” Drudge splashed the phrase in a banner headline across his front page as if it were earth shattering news. Since then, according to Huffington Post media reporter Michael Calderone, Fox has played the audio clip twenty-two times.
The Romney campaign immediately seized on the clip as a way of shifting their defense of Romney’s unappealing rhetoric into more friendly terrain. Speaking to Cavuto, Romney said:
There is a tape that just came out today where the president is saying he likes redistribution. I disagree. I think a society based upon a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America…. The right course for America is to create growth, create wealth, not to redistribute wealth.
Romney’s campaign sent out the quote as part of a press release. They followed up shortly with another press release that lists their usual litany of depressing economic indicators as proof that “Obama’s redistribution plan…didn’t work.” What is missing is any proof, besides a fourteen-year-old quote, that Obama actually pursued a redistribution plan once in office.
By Wednesday, the Romney campaign had regained its footing. Reporters were being inundated with statements using the redistribution quote as a hook for all their usual talking points. For example, they released a statement headlined, “Obama’s Redistribution Didn’t Work For Small Businesses.” “Mitt Romney understands that opportunity and free enterprise create jobs and grow our nation’s small businesses—not government redistribution,” said Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul. The campaign also worked the phrase into their stump speeches. Paul Ryan told a Virginia audience that, Obama is “going to try and distract and divide this country to win by default.” Then he asserted:
President Obama said that he believes in redistribution. Mitt Romney and I are not running to redistribute the wealth. Mitt Romney and I are running to help Americans create wealth. Efforts that promote hard work and personal responsibility over government dependency are what have made this economy the envy of the world.
As Slates Dave Weigel points out, it is ridiculous to blame Obama for distracting and dividing the country, and then attack Obama for something he said fourteen years ago.
Conservative pundits, though, are cheering on the Romney/Ryan campaign’s silliness. After Romney’s appearance on Cavuto, Fox panelist and Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes said of the attack on Obama’s quote, “[It’s] good, [he should] make the argument. Going back to 1998 shows the president has believed this for a long time.” That’s a specious argument. If you go back to 1998 and look at anything Mitt Romney said, it may be diametrically opposed to what he believes today. Generally, the older the quote, the less relevant it is. Certainly that’s the standard Hayes would use if it were Romney who long ago said something Hayes considers damaging.
More importantly, Ryan’s statement creates two false dichotomies. Contra Ryan, redistribution can promote hard work instead of government dependency. A great example is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a wage subsidy for low-earning households. The purpose is to make menial jobs more financially attractive relative to being unemployed and eligible for welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. It was created with bipartisan support, and by all accounts it has worked well. It also happens to be one reason that so many low-income families do not pay any income taxes, the very state of affairs that Romney decried.
It is also wrong to assume that any wealth redistribution is the opposite of creating wealth. Reasonable people can differ on the optimal amount of redistribution to generate economic growth. But a glance at countries such as Denmark and Germany shows that high marginal tax rates, with the revenue going to strong educational and healthcare systems can develop a healthy, educated and therefore globally attractive workforce. That, in turn, can yield strong rates of economic growth.
The underlying complaint against Obama is bogus anyway. Drudge misleadingly cut the quote to create a false impression. As Jonathan Chait explains in New York magazine, if you read the full quote, you see that Obama is actually expressing a very moderate, neoliberal attitude. Obama actually said that some of the backlash against government has been deserved. To revive faith in collective action, Obama argues, government programs must be more efficient. “We do have to be innovative in thinking, what are the delivery systems that are actually effective.… because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot,” said Obama. This is not radical socialism. But then, neither is the Affordable Care Act, even though conservatives have labeled it as such. If Romney’s incompetent campaign did not have the conservative media to invent these myths, they would truly be lost.
By: Ben Adler, The Nation, September 19, 2012
“The Real Moochers”: Obama Supporters Subsidize Romney Supporters With Their Taxes
In a video posted yesterday, Mitt Romney slammed the people who support President Obama, saying they are most likely “dependent on government.” Romney’s comments were recorded as he spoke at to an exclusive group of donors at a private meeting. Obama’s fans think of themselves as “victims,” he said. They believe they are “entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it.” He added, “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Many on both left and right have criticized Romney for his lack of empathy and rejection of the social contract. However, it’s easy to understand why Romney might view America this way. After all, Republicans supposedly represent those with more money, and Democrats supposedly represent those with less—sometimes much less. It’s plausible that Romney’s supporters would pick up the tab (through their taxes) for social programs that benefit Obama’s supporters. For the same reason, it’s plausible that Red states would subsidize Blue states, and Red counties would subsidize Blue counties where the poor people live.
But, although it’s plausible, it’s completely wrong. When Romney says his job isn’t to care about those who depend on government for healthcare, food, and housing, he’s talking about his base. Across America, Obama’s supporters actually subsidize Romney’s supporters.
Blue States Subsidize Red States
Studies show that states that elect Democrats contribute the most in federal taxes relative to what they consume in government services. Conversely, many states that elect Republicans contribute the least in taxes relative to the services they consume. This is true even though many Democratic states contain large, poor, urban populations of color.
Here’s the evidence: The 10 “Tax Producing States” listed below, left, contribute the most in tax revenues relative to the services they consume. They usually vote Democratic. The ten “Tax Dependent States” listed below consume the most in government services relative to the taxes they pay. And they usually vote Republican. (Each state’s name is shown in blue if voters there lean toward Obama, and red if they lean toward Romney, as per Nate Silver’s 538 blog.)
More detailed analysis confirms this pattern. Even the libertarians at the journal Reason acknowledge this so-called “Red/Blue Paradox.”
Blue Counties Subsidize Red Counties
The same imbalance prevails within states, at the county level. The Blue counties contribute the most state taxes relative to the services they consume. The Red counties consume the most services relative to the taxes they pay. For example, a recent study documented the pattern in Washington state. King County, the solidly-Democratic county that surrounds Seattle, provides “nearly 42% of the state’s tax revenues, yet receives only 25% of the money spend from Washington’s general fund.” Conversely, five counties that require the most in services relative to the taxes they pay are largely Republican.
California shows a similar pattern. Republican Modoc and Tulare Counties consume the most in taxpayer-funded services from the state on a per-capita basis. Says San Francisco Chronicle writer Kevin Fagan: “The prevailing attitude among the right-wing ranchers and modern hippies who define Modoc County is of fierce self-reliance—but more people here than just about anywhere else depend on welfare checks of some kind to get by.” In contrast, famously liberal San Francisco and Marin Counties generate the most tax revenues for the state on a per capita basis.
Why Red States Need Blue State’s Tax Dollars
Why do people in Red states and counties resent government spending so passionately even as they need so much of it? The central problem is poverty. Many of the residents of these counties are poor. They are ill-prepared to make a decent living no matter how hard they tug on their own bootstraps. For example, in California’s conservative Modoc county only 12 percent of adults over 25 have a bachelor’s degree. Nearly 20 percent live below the poverty line. Many Modoc residents can’t afford to send their children to college. They need government programs to survive, let alone improve their financial outlook.
Without government support it’s hard to see a way to break the cycle of poverty and dependence. At least so far, the formula of small government, limited services, low investment, and low taxes that conservative states have implemented for themselves hasn’t helped their economies much. (See my earlier column.)
This situation would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. When a tax protester yelled “Keep your goddamn government hands off my Medicare” many scoffed at that one person’s ignorance. But most Americans who rail against taxes and the size of government are profoundly unaware that taxes they hate fund the programs they want and need. And they are unaware that the states and counties inhabited by “welfare queens” and “freeloading illegals” are actually sending them the money that keeps them fed, cared for, and educated.
Put It to a Vote
Let’s put the question of a tax rates to a national referendum and see what Americans really want. Allow voters in each county to decide whether to keep their state and federal taxes at their current level or to lower them. The catch is this: If you vote to lower your taxes then your county or state can’t take out any more money than it puts in. Perhaps this would make everyone happy. Red counties would get the lower taxes and vastly reduced services they want. And people in Blue counties (once they stop trying to give their money to people who don’t want to receive it) would keep more of their hard-earned cash, and enjoy vastly better-funded local services. Let’s give it a try.
By: David Brodwin, U. S. News and World Report, September 18, 2012
“Atop The Class Structure”: Does Boca Raton Mitt Romney Dislike America?
The most incisive reaction to Mitt Romney’s disparaging comments about 47 percent of us came from a conservative friend who e-mailed: “If I were you, I’d wonder why Romney hates America so much.”
A bit strong, perhaps. But the more you think about what Romney said, the more you wonder how he really feels about the country he wants to lead.
What kind of nation are we if nearly half of us are lazy, self-indulgent moochers who will never be persuaded to mend our ways? “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” Romney said, thus writing off a huge share of our citizenry.
From his perch high atop the class structure, Romney offered an analysis of political motivations that even Marxists would regard as excessively materialistic. He speaks as if hardworking parents who seek government help to provide health care for their kids are irresponsible, that students who get government aid to attend community colleges are not trying to “care for their lives.” Has he never spoken with busboys and waitresses, hospital workers and janitors who make too little to pay income taxes but work their hearts out to “take personal responsibility”?
In defending himself on Fox News on Tuesday, Romney only deepened his difficulty. “I think a society based upon a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America,” he said.
Put aside that if President Obama wanted a “government-centered nation,” the stock market wouldn’t have doubled, making many in Romney’s Boca Raton, Fla., audience richer. In his impatience with those he accuses of casting themselves as “victims,” Romney misses the real story of government in the lives of most Americans. So often, we combine our own exertions with a little assistance along the way — the GI Bill, student loans, Social Security survivors’ benefits, public education — to become self-sufficient and independent.
And Romney said not a word about all the redistribution upward in a tax code that favors investment over labor income. That’s why Romney pays federal taxes at a much lower rate than do many in middle class — and why, given his stress on the importance of paying income taxes, he might usefully release a few more of his own tax returns.
Romney’s comments, which were caught in a video obtained and published online by Mother Jones magazine, have been widely compared to Obama’s private 2008 comment about working-class people who “cling to guns or religion.” I disliked that line, and as a churchgoing supporter of gun control, I always bristle at the too-easy conflation some liberals make of “God” and “guns.” But Obama’s defenders have been correct in noting that he got a big thing right that Romney got wrong: Most of Obama’s observations were empathetic toward blue-collar Americans who “feel so betrayed by government.” His whole point was the need to reach out to, not write off, a constituency that had not embraced him.
Many have already written wisely about how Romney’s original statement got the facts wrong, notably about how many Americans actually pay federal taxes and how a large share of those who don’t are retired.
But here’s the most important point Romney got wrong: Among the wealthy nations, it’s difficult to find one where people work harder than the United States. In a 2005 New Yorker article (written before the downturn), James Surowiecki noted that, compared with Europeans, “more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth.” Yes, the riches enjoyed by the folks at that Boca Raton fundraiser were made possible in significant part by the strenuous efforts of proud, self-sufficient people, including many in the 47 percent.
Romney misses something else about America: We do believe in a certain amount of “redistribution” toward those in need. We have always rejected what one of our leaders called a “destructive mind-set,” which he defined as “the idea that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved,” an approach with “no nobler purpose than ‘Leave us alone.’ ”
That would be George W. Bush in 1999, as my colleague Michael Gerson reminded us the other day. Bush added: “Yet this is not who we are as Americans. We have always found our better selves in sympathy and generosity, both in our lives and in our laws. . . . Our national character shines in our compassion.”
Yes, it does, even if the Boca Raton Mitt Romney seems not to appreciate that about us, either.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 19, 2012
“It’s The 1 Percent, Stupid”: The Case Against Pitting The 47 Percent Vs The 99 Percent
The news of Mitt Romney’s remarks at a closed-door fundraiser that were leaked by Mother Jones has been dominating since it broke yesterday. The scandalous content appears plentiful enough to keep pundits and political junkies glued to Twitter for the remainder of the cycle. And let’s be clear: between Romney’s callous “wait-and see” approach to the Middle East peace process, his instrumental view of Latino voters and his parasitic characterization of those who are too poor to pay income tax, he painted a devastating picture of himself as a leader and a person.
The line from the video that is the source of the most fascination is when Romney claims that he cares not at all for the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes and freeload off the government, since they are sure to be Obama voters anyway. The statement is a window into the cynical and meanspirited worldview that would guide this candidate’s policies and priorities were he to win in November. This alone should give every voter pause, regardless of partisan affiliation.
But there’s a reason right-wing blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson’s first tweet after seeing the leaked tapes expressed joy:
Dammit! I’m just now seeing these Romney secret videos. We need that guy on the campaign trail!
A year ago this week, a small band of committed activists achieved a goal that had eluded the established political organizations and the progressive nonprofit sector: they successfully shifted the national conversation away from one about cuts and austerity to one about our nation’s yawning economic inequality. “The 99 percent versus the 1 percent” became the rallying cry for an reinvigorated movement, and Occupy Wall Street ushered in a new era where political fantasy gave way to economic reality in shaping the public discourse.
While the glory days of Occupy faded with winter, the movement left an indelible imprint on our collective consciousness: despite partisan claims to the contrary, most residents in this country have far more in common than we have that drives us apart.
(A big shout out to those committed activists who retook Zuccotti Park for the anniversary of Occupy. For more on this, see Nation reporting here.)
Panicked by the need to respond to the growing sense of outrage about a rigged system built by some of their architects, right-wing leaders cast about for a way to change the conversation back to their own advantage. It was this desire that drove Erick Erickson to start the “53 percent movement.” In launching his campaign, Erickson called the protesters “whiners,” and sought a new social division—one that pitted the 53 percent of Americans who pay federal income taxes against those he claimed were “free-loading” activists. Despite his entreaties and the cheerleading of the right-wing echo chamber, their manufactured meme could not compete with the much more resonant, organic and accurate 99 percent rallying cry.
Still, the mathematical and rhetorical trick has remained in the back pocket of a GOP desperate to change the subject back to their hobbyhorse of the deficit. They see their opportunity in the resurrection of the 47 percent argument, despite how the moment presented itself.
There is now, as there was then, much to take issue with in the 47 percent statistic. Those 47 percent of Americans live below the poverty line or are unemployed or are elderly, many of whom have paid taxes their entire life. Those 47 percent also almost certainly pay some form of taxes: be it payroll taxes, income taxes, state taxes, property tax or sales tax. And there is emerging an even more in-the-weeds debate about whether or not these 47 percent are actually more likely to vote for Romney or Obama, an answer we’ll never find because it’s different depending on how you count. It is tempting to jump on these arguments—passionate as we all are for getting the ever-dwindling facts out to our fellow Americans.
But doing so will cede the home field advantage to the GOP. This certainty accounts for Stuart Varney’s crowing that it’s about time we get back to talking about how “half of the population is living off of the other half” during Fox and Friends’s morning coverage of the tapes. It is the same reason that Brian Kilmeade on the same network stated unequivocally that Romney should be stumping on this issue all the time. If we’re spending time talking about what half the population does or does not get or do, we inevitably draw attention away from the fact that the GOP is running a candidate whose entire life experience and political vision is shaped by being part of the top tiny fraction of this country’s wealth at a time where most Americans are struggling to get by.
So, while the campaign can’t be happy about the GOP-patented guerrilla tactics now coming back to bite one of their own, early pronouncements that the election was won last night are premature and irresponsible. If Romney’s camp can weather this storm and find themselves washed up on the beaches of the 47 percent versus the 99 percent, they might have a chance of not getting voted off the Island. This election—and more important, the fight for economic opportunity—remains about the genuine struggles and solutions that benefit all but the most privileged in this country. Romney’s dismissal of half of those folks doesn’t change that fact.
A full timeline of the right’s campaign to move the 47 percent meme is provided here by Media Matters for America.
By: Ilyse Hogue, The Nation, September 18, 2012
“A Huge Benefit For The Rich”: Warren Buffett Is Right
The revelation that Mitt Romney received an income of $21 million in 2010 and paid just 13.9 percent of that in federal income taxes has highlighted an enormous problem in our tax code. Income from investments (or income that is manipulated to appear to come from investments) is taxed at lower rates than income from work. And this is a huge benefit for the rich.
Technically, the breaks that Romney enjoys are available to anyone with investment income, but the vast majority of this type of income goes to the rich. We recently calculated that about a third of taxpayers with incomes exceeding $10 million get the majority of their income from investments and consequently pay an average effective tax rate of 15.3 percent.
We then looked at taxpayers with incomes between $60,000 and $65,000 and found that just over 2 percent get the majority of their incomes from investments. In fact, over 90 percent of the $60,000-$65,000 group get less than a tenth of their income from investments, and consequently pay an average effective tax rate of 21.3 percent. That’s a higher effective tax rate than those multimillionaires who get most of their income from investments.
How do multimillionaires justify their low effective tax rates? Many, like Warren Buffett, admit that there is no justification at all, and have asked the president and Congress to reform the tax code. Buffett finds it offensive that he pays federal taxes at a lower effective rate than his secretary does.
Others argue that special breaks for investment income are necessary to encourage investment. This is absurd, given that people with money invest in order to profit and that is motivation enough. But this argument is even more absurd in the case of wealthy fund managers like Romney, who use a loophole to characterize even their income from work as investment income to enjoy the lower tax rates. (This is the loophole for “carried interest.”)
Still others, including Romney himself, argue that much of their income represents corporate profits that have already been subject to the corporate income tax of 35 percent before they were paid out as stock dividends. This is nonsense. At least a third of Romney’s income took the form of “carried interest,” which is actually compensation for his work in managing other people’s money, and this is certainly not corporate profits.
Even in the unlikely event that all of the rest of Romney’s income did come from corporate stock dividends or gains on the sales of those stocks, there’s no reason to think that the corporations involved paid 35 percent of their profits in corporate income taxes. We recently studied most of the Fortune 500 corporations that have been profitable for each of the last three years and found that their average effective tax rate over the three-year period was just 18.5 percent. Thirty of these companies paid nothing at all.
Warren Buffett is right. People like him, and Mitt Romney, should pay more to support the society that made their fabulous fortunes possible.
By: Scott Wamhoff, Legislative Director of Citizens for Tax Justice, Published in U. S. News and World Report, January 31, 2012
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