The 47%: Takers vs. Makers

     What's great about that video-and there will be more we're promised,, is that Romney really spilt the beans here. He didn't mean to-this was only for the ears of his rich friends, But here he tells us what he really thinks-and what Republicans really think.

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html

     So only those who pay income taxes are "real Americans" part of the "productive class." Of course Romney never considers that he himself pays little income tax-in 2010, the best we can tell as he didn't even entirely release that year, he payed only 13.9%.

     In fact for all we know he may not have paid any in other years. As he hasn't released his tax returns there's no way to know, but it's reasonable to suspect he paid very little a few years-and possibly none.

     So how is he different from the 47%?

     As a purely factual question it's interesting to consider that Romney pays less total tax than the average 47 percenter:

     "For what it’s worth, this division of “makers” and “takers” isn’t true. Among the Americans who paid no federal income taxes in 2011, 61 percent paid payroll taxes — which means they have jobs and, when you account for both sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of their income in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romney paid. Another 22 percent were elderly."

     :So 83 percent of those not paying federal income taxes are either working and paying payroll taxes or they’re elderly and Romney is promising to protect their benefits because they’ve earned them. The remainder, by and large, aren’t paying federal income or payroll taxes because they’re unemployed. But that’s a small fraction of the country."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/?tid=pm_pop

     Indeed, there's no way that this isn't a PR nightmare for the Romney team. He's now on the record, discounting half the country.

     Again, though it's not clear how he parses these two classes of makers and takers. Is anyone who simply gets a tax refund rather than owing money, a "taker?" That would even include many of his own supporters. Is GE then a taker as it paid no tax?

     What's clear is that this is not a minority view in the Republican party:

      Romney is not alone in this concern. “We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry said when he began his presidential campaign. “We’re coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers versus makers in society,” Rep. Paul Ryan said at the Heritage Foundation. “People who pay nothing can easily forget the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch,” warned Rep. Michelle Bachmann.