The point he was making is that Romney, who pretends to be one of the people (meaning the employed class), is not. There’s nothing wrong with living on your investment income, especially if you were born rich like Romney and parleyed that into even more money. That’s ok...and I believe Gingrich wants to do away with capital gains taxes, so in the end, Romney would pay even less.
But Gingrich actually works for a living and pays not only his income taxes but self-employment taxes (FICA, etc.) on his income. Being self-employed myself, I know what that’s like: if Gingrich is paying only 35% of his income in taxes, it’s because he has a good accountant and lots of deductions because of the nature of his work. I work in a low-deductions field and earn much less than he did and one year I paid nearly 60% of my income between income and self-employment taxes. We don’t have a regressive tax system here, we have a repressive tax system.
But the whole point, as with the Bain video, is that Romney is saying one thing but the whole reality is entirely different. That doesn’t mean that it’s illegal or even wrong, but Romney should be honest about it.
And Gingrich’s proposal to have a flat tax on income of any kind would solve all of this. Accountants and tax attorneys might be a little PO’ed, though...
Most accountants and tax attorneys would prefer a simpler flat tax system.
You don't think they get their jollies filling out a Form 1040, do you? There's nothing professionally satisfying about it.
Gotta call BS on that. Newtie knew what he was saying and that he was making a dishonest and progressive argument.