Posted on 09/18/2012 6:42:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney's latest campaign setback is a leaked video that shows him slagging the 47 percent of the population who, he says, will always vote for Barack Obama, because they want everything for free from the government.
The 47 percent number presumably refers to the percent of the population who don't pay Federal Income Taxes, which of course is just one kind of tax.
From the Tax Policy Center, these three pie charts show who those people are.
Kevin Roose at NYMag puts the data into words:
But back to the 47 percent. There are two primary ways to pay no (or negative) federal income taxes. The first is to be poor, and the second is to be elderly. In 2011, of the 18.1 percent of American households who paid no federal tax (meaning, no federal income or payroll tax), more than half were elderly, and most of the other half were non-elderly people making below $20,000 a year. The other sliver, roughly one in 20 non-payers, were people who made more than $20,000 in household income.
The reason being poor helps is because, with a combination of tax credits (like the earned income credit and the child credit) and deductions, many people earning under $20,000 a year can zero out their overall rate. The primary reason being elderly helps is that Social Security benefits aren't taxed as income, so if all (or most) of your income comes from your monthly Social Security check, your taxable income is marginal or non-existent.
So there you have it. The poor and elderly.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
What is forgotten about the 47% is that they all pay sales taxes, local taxes, real estate taxes, state taxes, and property taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes.
It’s the burden of these taxes that affect the poor more than anyone else — and keep them poor.
Agreed! My Soc Sec income is also taxed. Maybe y'all and I are the only ones? :)
RE: Romney does not understand that a good chunk of the 53 percent is also for Obama, particularly suburban women in PA, OH, MI, VA, and WI.
If this is the case, what more is there to say? Obama 2012?
Well, Obama and company and the DNCp are certainly fine examples of it.
Look, the Republican party has some problems there too.
Saying the entire 47% are “Moochers” is not correct.
Good thing that’s not what Romney said. All he did that I can see is point out the fact that 47% paid no income tax. I guess telling the truth is out of fashion these days.
After all that plus EBT, SNAP, CRACKLE and POP, I guyess they are not really poor anymore are they Joe?
I'm not sure why this is thought of as a "setback." Those 47% would not have voted for him, anyway. While it may push a couple out of the lower end of the "independents," it should attract more than that number at the upper end.
"Upper" and "lower" are subjectively used here, but you know what I mean.
You beat me to the post...If they are counting SS as part of the 47% then the assumption is wrong. None of my friends who are retired are voting for “O”. We know full well what socialism does to a country and to our kids and grandkids!!
It is clearly exactly what the Firesign Theatre said it would be on 'In the Next World, You're On Your Own':
EVERYTHING!!! That's right...EVERYTHING!!!
But it is a Tax.
I’m so damned tired of people trying to make out like it is. They are the REQUIRED contributions to Social Security and Medicare - NOT FEDERAL TAXES.
So then are taxes now "contributions" and not taxes???
Are they not collected by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT???
Get Real. You are sounding like Nancy Pelosi.
Not hardly. SHE is one of the ones that purport that it IS a tax just like income tax. It is still not, regardless of your assumptions. It may be wasted, taken away and used for general fund uses, but it is not supposed to be. Why do you think GORE talked about the infamous lock box? They are talking out of both sides of their mouths - making "payroll taxers" think they are paying income taxes whilst simultaneously trying to make them think their payments to SS and Medicare are sequestered. I know real, it may be an 'effective' tax, but that's not what it was set up to be. And, helping these people think they are contributing to something is BS.
There is a third way. If you’re working your butt off supporting a wife and a couple of kids on an income of around $50,000 then the odds are that thanks to deductions and child tax credits you don’t pay income tax. That is the average family in the country. They aren’t poor, they’re just trying to get by. And they appear to be part of the 47% that Romnney has written off as never going to vote for him. How logical is that?
Said hardworking fellow will not spin the comment in his mind to mean what the liberals want it to mean.
Said hardworking fellow will know exactly whom Romney was referring to - the leeches.
“It’s the burden of these taxes that affect the poor more than anyone else — and keep them poor.”
Bullsh*t! What keeps them poor is their failing to do what is necessary not to be poor. If those taxes were “keeping them poor” then we’d all be poor.
Look on your paycheck. Your SS payments are classifed under OASDI (Old Age, and Survivor Disability Insurance) payments along with the Medicare percentage payments that are covered under the Federal Insurance CONTRIBUTIONS Act.
But, how they gonna show they have Obamacare if they don’t have taxes to pay? If they don’t have Obamacare and have no tax returns how will they be “fined” for not having Obamacare?
” Except once again SS and Medicare taxes are called ‘payroll taxes’ as if those funds government operations like military, roads, education, etc. food stamps, sect 8, endless. They dont even cover those entitlements anymore as both are running huge deficits.
Yet they never come out and specifically say that those entitlements are unrelated to those taxes, or should be since thats what they imply. “
They lie : )
Yep, like on that debt limit deal bill. That one really urks me. Gilb and me been on thread on that for days not letting up.
Here's the problem we have. If conservatives are going to take on a % of the population as moochers(as a political negative symbol) much like Obama does with ‘the rich’, Romney cant do it. He cant win a battle like that, he's super-rich and white and was born rich. He's the wrong guy to do it. It wont work and will result in another lib victory and just more whining about how everything is unfair..This is a disaster,
Someone like Herman Cain could have done it, He was made for a battle like that. He would have been perfect, 'Black conservative works his way up through business with no gubment help'
Except that Romney apparently doesn't know that. Look at the clip. He specifically included the people who pay no income tax as part of those who won't vote for him and who he won't bother trying to appeal to. Either he does include the kind of people I spoke of as the freeloaders...or he hasn't a clue as to who the people who don't pay much in income tax are. I expect it's the second.
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