“Disinformation is duping. Misinformation is tricking.” ― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Mother Jones, a bimonthly American magazine, recently brought to light a video
featuring Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Republican presidential candidate in
the upcoming election. The video was brought to Mother Jones by James Carter IV, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter via an anonymous source, with the apt YouTube handle Anne Onymous.
According to an update from Mother Jones, footage
was covertly taken at a private fundraiser that was held at Marc
Leder's Boca Raton home on May 17th. While the identity of Anne Onymous
is still unknown, many speculate that the footage was taken by an
employee of the company that catered the event.
While the unaltered version of the video has only been viewed 600,000 times, the video initially posted by Mother Jones has
been viewed almost 3 million times. The video and its contents have
spread rapidly and have the potential to dramatically impact the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
Many conservatives believe that the entire situation has been blown out of proportion. This view is held by National Review's Jonah Goldberg stated that "to
read many of the reactions on Twitter, you’d think Mother Jones had
just found video of Mitt Romney strangling a hooker with her own
pantyhose."
Mitt Romney, often described as out-of-touch and robotic by those of the liberal persuasion, has managed to alienate or offend many despite his repeated attempts to relate to the general population.
Normally, the irritation I feel towards Mitt Romney is limited to his position on social issues and his inability to tell an unoffensive anecdote. Mitt Romney, like all of us, is more than entitled to have personal opinions and a terrible sense of humor.
My current aggravation with him was highlighted in an article from Slate. In the article, Eliot Spitzer looks to information provided by the Tax Policy Center and Citizens for Tax Justice to expose the inaccuracy of the "technically accurate" statistic that 47% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes.
In the recording, Romney indicates that the 47% of Americans that do not pay their federal income taxes will vote for Obama because they do not want to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives." He states that these Americans believe themselves to be victims with entitlements "to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it."
While 46.4% of households in 2011 did not pay federal income taxes, 28.3% of households did pay federal payroll taxes, which funds the social security and Medicare programs. The remaining 18.1% of households pay neither income nor payroll taxes.
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| Who Paid Neither Income Nor Payroll Taxes? |
Approximately 10% of the households Mitt Romney believes to be inconsequential are the elderly. A majority of the 6.9% of households with an annual salary below $20,000 are living below the poverty threshold. These households include the disabled, blue collar workers, single parents, and members of the Armed Forces.
The "Others" category consists of an estimated 14,000 households with an annual income of $500,000 to $1 million and 4,000 households with incomes over $1 million. By taking advantage of an abundance of loopholes in the tax code, almost 20,000 Americans well above the poverty line are choosing not to "pay their fair share."
The statements made implied that half of the population that owe federal income taxes choose not to, but in reality a majority of these households are not required to pay federal income taxes because they are either unemployed, senior citizens, or live well below the poverty line.
According to Mitt Romney, his job is not to worry about people that do not pay taxes because he'll "never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives" and that they "will vote for the president no matter what" because they want to remain dependent upon government assistance.
The full transcript of the fundraiser video can be found here .
I came across the following clip while wading through information related to this political debacle and found it entertaining while still addressing many of the issues I have had with with what I consider to be Mitt Romney's hypocritical stance on the tax code.
P.S. If you find Mitt Romney's style of humor to be--for the lack of a better word--humorous, it would probably be less awkward for both of us if you did not watch the video.