The records also showed he gave some $4 million to charity.
Now Harry Reid says that Romney "manipulated" his returns to show he paid too much money to the government. Apparently, Romney didn't take the charitable deduction. As for manipulating, ask yourselves if you have the ability to manipulate your return once it is submitted.
Is there an issue here-other than Harry Reid's credibility?
In addition, is it a problem that Romney is paying 14% capital gains as opposed to the higher rate most people pay on earned income? I am no tax expert, but I do know that capital gains taxes are lower because invested money has already been taxed when it was earned income. Romney's income comes from investments.
What this is is simply part of the Obama election game plan. Class warfare. Forget that he has done nothing to improve race relations in this country as was hoped by many. He is driving a wedge between classes. Mitt Romney is a bad guy because he is rich. (Obama is also rich, just not as rich as Romney.) When somebody can show me Romney earned his fortune illegally, then we can have a discussion.
The other reason Obama is playing class warfare is that he wants to put as many people as possible on the public dole or make them dependant on government. He seems to be succeeding if you look at the unemployment figures. When you drive people in the middle class into the lower classes, income redistribution seems attractive. Of course we now know from that 1998 tape that Obama is in favor of income redistribution. Joe the Plumber can testify to that as well, and he has the tape to back it up.
Having lost the tax battle, Prince Harry is now attacking Romney on the Mormon issue.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/25/reid-romney-not-face-mormonism/
That is now the pot calling the kettle black.
Harry Reid is a very small man.
ReplyDeleteHarry Reid is a very small man.
ReplyDeleteClass warfare it most certainly is, and shameful at that. For a good long time now, through numerous cycles of various combinations of party control of the House, Senate, and White House, long-term capital gains have been taxed differently than ordinary income for a variety of reasons. As Gary observes, this is investment money, not earned income, and I would add to his observation that capital gains are similarly not subject to payroll taxes either, for the same reason(s).
ReplyDeleteThe most recent cycle where change would have been easy was, of course, the first two years of Obama’s first term. Democrats had a larger majority in the House than is now enjoyed by the Republicans, I believe a filibuster-proof Senate (at least until the election of Scott Brown in MA, as I recall) and a significant Senate majority thereafter, and the White House itself, for a full two years.
Democrats were able to do, and in fact did, what they wanted to in areas such as “Obamacare”, stimulus spending, etc. They therefore could have, but did not, revise the tax code to reflect what it is they are now clamoring and whining for. Someone ask them why not.
I fail to understand why people like Syarlis, Ronnie Milsap, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder cannot see through this scam. When you have a situation where the top one (1) per cent of income earners pay nearly 40 per cent of Federal income taxes, the top 10% pay almost 70%, and the top 20% pay almost 90%, while the lower approximately 50% pay no Federal income taxes at all, it is certainly easy for me to see that some out there are in fact not paying their “fair share”. We fought a bloody Revolutionary War partially over “taxation without representation”, and now we are moving more and more into “representation without taxation”.
For a good while, I have rejected the idea that Obama is a/the “Manchurian President”, but I am compelled to start to re-think that. People who pay no taxes have no skin in the game, and therefore do not care what tax rates for others are. Actually, higher tax rates mean more goodies for them. I am beginning to believe in at least the possibility that Obama is, as Gary also observes, deliberately increasing the number of people totally dependent on government, not only to have a permanent Democrat voting majority but possibly/probably to convert this great country to some sort of socialist operation, as has been his bent and outlook all his life, at least to date.
Speaking of whining, just look at the “Bush tax cuts”. A couple of years ago, as with capital gains and everything else, Democrats could very easily have repealed the tax cuts for “the rich”, or on anyone or everyone for that matter, thereby raising the tax rates, and the taxes, on anybody they wanted to. Instead, legislation was passed, and signed into law by Obama, extending the current rates. Now, Obama and most Democrats are whining that Republicans will not allow them to do what they could easily have done during that two years. Certainly, neither the economy, nor anything else, has sufficiently changed to make tax increases on anyone any more appropriate or helpful than they were twoyears or more ago.
So I would again suggest that, as with capital gains, someone ask Democrats, particulary Obama, since he could have vetoed the legislation with no possibility of an override, just why it is that tax increases were inappropriate two years ago but proper today. I guess I just don’t get it.
This is partisan, pandering politics (don’t you just love alliteration??) at its very worst, but it will probably work with the growing number of mopes out there.
elwood is correct that the Bush tax cuts should have been repealed as to all income over $250,000. However, as I recall, that could not be gotten through the senate, where Republicans could filibuster anything, and chose to filibuster almost everything.
ReplyDeleteI guess Susan Collins wasn't willing to go along.
I have nothing against class warfare, but as Chris Hani told a luncheon of the South African Chamber of Commerce, redistribution must not be the kind that kills the cow to distribute the meat.
My preferred tax plan is that everyone, no matter how rich or poor, gets the first $20,000 of income tax free. For married couples with children, $50,000. For single parents with children, probably around $35,000.
The top bracket should be 50 percent of income over either one or two million dollars. There is room to debate exactly where that line should be drawn. In between, about five brackets, paying between 10 percent and 35 percent.
Now for those who put their income into NEW investment, not speculating in old stock certificates, but new facilities producing new goods hiring for new jobs, I would be happy to exempt the entire amount of that investment from income tax. (When the investment is sold, the income derived from the sale will be taxable).
I don't care that up to half the population doesn't pay federal income tax. When the income tax was first instituted, only about ten percent of the population paid, or were expected to pay it.
But I am all for wage scales that would move more Americans into income levels where they would pay more tax. To that end, I would amend the minimum wage laws to provide that the lowest paid employee shall receive no less than one percent the compensation of the highest paid executive... one percent... that seems so minimal... but it means that if the CEO makes seven million, the janitor makes $70,000, and about time. Then the janitor will pay income tax.
Maybe Gary can talk to his friends at the Right to Work for Less Committee about this.