Something that is true: when people are liars, when they have bad intent and do bad stuff, when their ambitions to achieve power override any semblance of simple common decency, eventually they will be found out. It may not be for years and years, or uncovered to the fullest extent, but it will happen. Law enforcement professionals and psychologists know this: a combination of stupidity, over-confidence, rashness, and sometimes underlying guilt will trip up most people who seem to have little conscience or goodwill towards much of anyone.
When there are extremely powerful forces working to prop up people like this, it may be harder to uncover the true character of someone who, if you were kind, you might term "greedy" and if you weren't feeling gracious, "a sociopath." Billions and billions of dollars have been spent on convincing American voters that Mitt Romney should be the next President of the United States. He's got everything the Big Boys want, or as close as they are going to get: he's a rich white businessman, he professes strong Christian values (albeit Mormon, which is not a plus with the far-right Evangelicals), he's got a pretty blonde wife, a fancy horse, and good hair. Most importantly, Mitt Romney is the man who will say anything that his backers want him to say. It doesn't matter if what he says directly contradicts his own former words or policies, it doesn't matter if it's a flat-out lie, it doesn't matter if what he says is hateful and divisive, and it doesn't matter if it's globally inflammatory and offensive. All that matters is this election philosophy: say what your sympathizers want to hear, no matter what. Tell them they are in the right, and you will save their country. Tell them anything at all, as long as it assures a vote.
A hidden-camera video released today of Romney speaking at a 50K-a-plate fundraiser last May, held at the Florida home of disreputable Sun Capitol private equity manager Marc Leder, has caused a firestorm of outrage, primarily for this comment regarding those folks who do not pay federal income taxes:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
Why is this a deeply reprehensible thing to say? Because it is a damaging, complete lie. Unless Romney is so sheltered and ignorant that he has no comprehension of the demographics of taxation, which I doubt, sort of, what he has done here is feed the billionaire and millionaire barracudas more hateful fish food to further encourage them to donate to his campaign in order to beat the lazy, entitled f-ups that receive services from the government.
The cruelty of Romney's statement is almost overwhelming, especially when a simple fact-check can tell anyone who is inclined to question his math or motives that:
- 50 percent are in this category because their incomes are so low that they are less than the sum of the standard deduction and personal and dependent exemptions for which the household qualifies. As TPC Senior Fellow Roberton Williams has noted, “the basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.”** Some 62 percent of the households who will owe no federal income tax in 2011 have incomes under $20,000.
- Another 22 percent do not owe federal income tax because they are elderly people who benefit from tax provisions to aid senior citizens, such as the exemption of Social Security benefits from income tax for beneficiaries who have incomes below $25,000 for single filers and $32,000 for joint filers and the higher standard deduction for the elderly.
- Another 15 percent (of the households who don’t owe federal income tax) don’t owe the tax because they are low-income working families with children who qualify for the child tax credit, the child and dependent care tax credit, and/or the earned income tax credit, and the credit(s) eliminate their income tax liability.***
So let's sum this up: almost everyone who does not pay federal income tax is either destitute, elderly, or the working poor with children.
In what world do you live in that you believe that old people and poor people just LOVE having to receive the utterly-meager tax breaks and subsistence-level benefits that they do, and that they do because they were too dumb or lazy or characterless to have accrued enough money to support themselves and their kids under all life circumstances, or had a million+ in the bank as to not have to worry about medical costs bankrupting them at some point? Mitt's callous dismissal of all those of less means or luck of birth is an appalling, stomach-turning knifing of millions of hard-working, decent citizens. He is the very embodiment of the "ugly American."
Think you should work hard and pay your taxes? So do I. Think that you can do everything right and by-the-book and still find yourself poor, sick, or in desperate need at some point in your life, with no family or friends that can come to your aid? I sure do. Think that our country will not survive being the kind of place that throws you away if you need help, rather than assist you to live with some measure of dignity and health while you try to make things better again? I absolutely do.
I've had a life where my family has been very poor, and pretty well-off. I've lived in working-class rural isolation and the tony suburbs of major cities. I've first-hand seen good people that needed help, got it, and went on to independence and great things. I've known someone who didn't have the money to see a doctor for a cough that lingered, and died because of it. We are as a country and as people more, so very, very much more, than what Romney sells in his speeches.
I don't want Mitt Romney's brutal, unforgivable lies to represent me as an American or as a citizen of the world. Even if I owned a money tree, even if I were somehow never to become old or sick, even if all the world was promised to me on a golden platter. Never.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman