Today, Mitt Romney Lost the Election

Why is it a disaster for Romney?

He is the best pro-Obama campaigner.

Thanks Socialist!

Mitt Romney 2016!

Socialist, you are part of the 47%, right?

Romney is doing such a great job writing Obama's commercials, Obama's tv commercial writers must have a lot of free time on their hands.

I'm sure Romney is equally outraged at corporations that don't pay taxes, as well as corn farmers and defense contractors who are depenedent on govt. welfare, right? Right?

He said INCOME taxes. So he is mad at himself. His INCOME tax rate was 0.8% last year. Some years, its been zero. Since almost all, or sometimes all his income is Capital Gains and Dividend taxes.

>I'm sure Romney is equally outraged at corporations that don't pay taxes, as

Are they people or not?
Should they be taxed if they can't vote? Do you want corporations to have rights of free speech?

Here Are The 47% Of The Population Who Don't Pay Federal Income Tax

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com#ixzz26mlhifC5

"only 1 in 20 who pay no Federal tax make over $20,000 a year."

BURN.

"Meanwhile, Jim Antle at the conservative site The Daily Caller makes another salient point: The elimination of taxes on the very poor has been GOP policy starting with Reagan, and continuing through Bush:
When Ronald Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, he boasted, “Millions of the working poor will be dropped from the tax rolls altogether, and families will get a long-overdue break with lower rates and an almost doubled personal exemption.”
Both the initial Reagan tax cuts of 1981 and indexing income taxes to inflation in 1985 had a similar effect.
In the 1990s, the Republican-controlled Gingrich Congress passed a $500 per child tax credit that also wiped out the income tax liability of many low- to moderate-income households.

“Fully 93 percent of the tax relief in our bill goes to taxpayers with annual incomes under $100,000, 76 percent goes to taxpayers with incomes under $75,000,” then-House Ways and Means Committe Chairman Bill Archer, a Texas Republican, said at the time. “If ever there was a tax plan for America’s forgotten middle class, this is it...."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romneys-47-who-are-dependent-on-the-government-2012-9#ixzz26mmbIDKw

I should have said non-elderly two posts above.

Don't underestimate the GOP's ability to steal an election Alpie.

Should there be representation without taxation?

>Don't underestimate the GOP's ability to steal an election Alpie.

Like when?

Mother Jones says there is even WORSE footage coming tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Will there be ridicule of people who cling to their guns and religion?

FYI! The video!
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser

HE lost the election way before today. He allowed the other side to define him in the summer and he gave undecided people no reason to vote for him- "I am not Obama" is not quite enough.

Well this, the Libya comments, and the poor GOp convention have basically sealed the deal then. I heart him because he says stupid words.

Poll:

Americans Really Didn't Like Mitt Romney's Libya Comments

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-libya-comments-poll-obama-ambassador-killed-egypt-2012-9#ixzz26mtPpgQ6

Mother Jones said the Obama camp is not responsible for this.

One of the main people who supported poor peopel paying no income tax, or paying a NEGATIVE income tax rate, was a noted Socialist economist by the name of Milton Friedman.

What is so spectacularly bizarre about this is that the leading 10 states in which the most people do not pay federal taxes are RED! They aren't voting for Obama. The states that are solid BLUE are also for the most part the states where the most people pay taxes. This has got to be the worst Republican candidate of my lifetime.

Sorry, meant to post this link: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/where-are-the-47-of-americans-who-pay-no-income-taxes/262499/

Brilliant Kyle. It's like the Bill Maher show when they interviews whites
From Mississippi who ALL were on food stamps, got Medicaid, SS, farm aid, and/ or HUD money, and NONE of whom paid taxes, but were complaining about tooich government AnF high taxes and hated Obama. When pressed for specific reasons, half of them
admitted it was because he was black or half breed (really!) or because he was Muslim or born in Kenya.

"This has got to be the worst Republican candidate of my lifetime."

Tricky Dick? W?

i'm told by people who have worked with romney that he is anything but dumb...whether about him or his handlers (or both) seems some really dumb shit has been going on...fine with me

gobama!

"This has got to be the worst Republican candidate of my lifetime."

Ino: Tricky Dick? W?

Uhhh, no he said CANDIDATE. Not PRESIDENT. Nixon and Bush were clearly better CANDIDATES than Romney is (or then there Dem opponents.)

_______________________

David Brooks is a Republican who from day 1 has been THE biggest Romney supporter at the Times, through thick and thin. But this is too much for even him:

"Thurston Howell Romney...
...Romney, who criticizes President Obama for dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the moochers....

...it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?...

...The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?hp

Socialist is too naive.

what mitt said has always been a fact in the past century in the usa, and has been well-known to most if not all americans. don't understand why you think this would do any harm to his election

yes, mitt is such an arrongant @#$W#%, but so sad that he is the less evil on the ballot

socialists.. capitalism sucks.. except for my iPad and Starbucks! who wants an occupy wall street shirt, only $5.99, oh wait

"socialist" is using that term sarcastically. He is like a German "social democrat" or UK Labour member. He wants capitalism with the government helping those less well off.

..And that describes even Reagan as president. His whole point is how "socialist" republicans and people on this board are when it suits them (mortgage interest deduction for example) but not when it doesn't (HUD.)

Get rid of Mittens and make Ryan the nominee.

These comments will blow over in a day. Romney has run a bad campaign, based too much on Obama and not enough on policy. But the debates will make or break the election for him.

the last week has show us what mitt really thinks--re so many subjects

he's backed himself into a corner where he can't contradict all this in the debates

obama, an excellent debater and no dummy, will force Romney to be consistent with the ugly POV's he's finally shared with us of recent--lose..lose--romney will either look like a complete flip flopping plastic politician; or he'll look like the arrogant disconnected wealthy repugnantcan that he is

dont miss the debates!

On MSNBC, Chuck Todd asked a GOP strategist “[aren’t something like 40% of the people who don’t pay federal income taxes taxes republicans i.e. elderly or working class whites?] To which the GOP strategist said “[at least 40%, yes…]”

Obama’s “Gods and Guns” comment was about how DESPITE some with hard-core social conservative beliefs, Democrats needed to work harder to reach out them and show them that Democrats had their interests at heart in terms of taxes and the economy. Romney’s comments are the OPPOSITE – he says he won’t even bother trying to reach the 47%.

Nice spin

Hahahhhhajahaaaaa. Yeh Ryan will save your social security checks riversiderzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Hahahahahaahahaha.

Omfg. You made me spit out my coffee from laughing so hard. Riversiderzzzzzzzzzzzzz you one funny cream cheese eating asexual fat fuck social security checking one issue voting poor republican (that the republican don't want in their party) limousine driving caviar eating right wing gun toting manhattanite who bought his coop in 1981 with $10 and a strategic blowjob!

Ya killling me with your insane hypocrisy and financial stoooopodity. But your coop is worth millions! But only bc of the republicans!!! Forget the Clintons and Obamas.

Who wants a president who consistently speaks without thinking about the effect of his words? Yes, Mitt is under a magnifying glass during the campaign, but it isn't going to get any better if he became president. Too many gaffes.

Here is TODAY's video:

Romney: ‘There’s Just No Way’ To Achieve Middle East Peace

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/09/18/863951/romney-fundraiser-middle-east-peace/

I mean...the London Olympics comment, the Libya comments, these comments...he is Obama's secret weapon.

From the Wall Street Journal: [Basically, the Journal agrees with ME that a large percentage of those who pay no Federal Income tax actually vote republican, and says Romney is mistaken. Ooops!!!]

Politics Counts: Who the 47% Actually Vote For

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/09/18/politics-counts-who-the-47-actually-vote-for/

I had read text of all this.
It is truly astounding, and he can't disavow this shit at the debate.
Obama's going to make him restate all this.

They'd tried to minimize specifics and talk the talk (lest specifics reveal their true sentiments), but this walk will need to be explained, and it won't go well.

As bad as this is, he is a true gaffeologist. I mean the Libya thing? puhleeze

A country with a budget deficit of over a trillion cannot afford to have 47% of its populace be non-contributors. There isn't enough money at the top 1-2% to close the gap.

I blame the Republicans as much as anyone for fostering the culture where 95% of America thinks they should only ever get tax cuts, never tax rises.

A true Alternative Minimum Tax! $300 per adult per year! Implement the year after nominal GDP rises above 5%. They get first dubs on reversals if government is cut.

Did you notice that the debt & the deficit only became an issue AFTER Bush left office, the guy who dug this hole with 2 elective wars & tax cuts for the wealthy? Sure we've got huge problems in this country but destroying the Federal government isn't a solution not are tax cuts for the wealthy. The sad truth is that the underlying problems hardly ever get addressed & certainly not at election time.

"with a budget deficit of over a trillion "

The recession is half the reason its so high.

"There isn't enough money at the top 1-2% to close the gap"

There is also not enough from the bottom 47% to close the gap. But there IS with the top 20% and certainly with the top 50%.

Oh, and - PAYROLL taxes and Federal excise taxes are about 45% of Federal revenue. Guess what? Nearly 100% of the 47% pay at least some of these, and of the non-elderly in the 47%, most pay MORE in excise and payroll taxes than they do in income taxes! Income taxes are only like 45% of Federal revenue. The rest is corporate taxes, tarrifs, and others.

"...Approximately 61 percent are working people who pay payroll taxes. As noted above, even the low-income households in this group pay substantial federal income taxes over time. The main options to force these people to pay federal income tax in years when their incomes are low include cutting the EITC or the Child Tax Credit, which would tend to reduce work incentives and increase child poverty and welfare use, and lowering the standard deduction or personal exemption, which could tax many low-income working families into, or deeper into, poverty.

An additional 22 percent of people who did not pay federal income taxes in 2009 are people aged 65 or older who have modest incomes (and do not have earnings). The main option to make these individuals pay federal income tax would be to subject their Social Security benefits to taxation despite their limited income.[25]

The remaining 17 percent includes students, people with disabilities or illnesses, the long-term unemployed, and other people with very low taxable incomes. To make these people pay federal income taxes, policymakers would have to tax disability, veterans’, and similar benefits or make full-time students and the long-term jobless individuals borrow (or draw from any available savings) to pay taxes on their meager incomes...

...Moreover, even these figures greatly understatelow-income households’ totaltax burden because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes. Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that the poorest fifth of households paid a stunning 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2011..."

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505

In other words, the poorest 20% pay a much HIGHER rate in state, local, federal payroll and federal excise taxes than do the richest 20%.

" In other words, the poorest 20% pay a much HIGHER rate in state, local, federal payroll and federal excise taxes than do the richest 20%."

Talk with your state or locality about that. Those states aren't going to be helping the feds solve their trillion dollar deficit.

Shunting off payroll taxes as separate since Social Security is about break-even now, the overwhelming majority (70%) of federal revenues come from individual income taxes, and the poor are not pulling their weight for national defense and Medicare.

> There is also not enough from the bottom 47% to close the gap. But there IS with the top 20% and certainly with the top 50%.

I don't believe that is true. The cutoff of income for the top 25% (Tax Foundation data) is $66,000. So it's good you are proposing raising taxes where the cowards aren't, but there isn't enough money there.

There's $5.1 trillion of AGI there, and the revenue gain of a 4% rate rise would be about $200 billion, forgetting about the difference between taxable and AGI and forgetting about avoidance. That's pretty close to the yearly cost cited of extending the Bush tax cuts of about $200 billion and that's not quite 1 trillion.

GDP has averaged 2.3% for the last 10 quarters, so nominal GDP is between 4-5%. It's time to stop blaming the recession for the deficit.

Hmmm, maybe we should raise the payroll tax on everyone.

I agree with Jason, everyone should pay the same rate, also everyone is entitled to the same number of kids in school and the same amount of lifetime medical benefits, also only one vote per person - none of this oh I forgot my ID - everyone gets one ID.

Also one hour max of Ben Brafman defending you in court and maximum one year in prison,

The Epic Irony Of The Gaffe That Will Cost Romney The Election

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-47-gaffe-george-romney-brainwash-2012-9#ixzz26qJnJQ7f

Poor Mittens.

At least he has his $100 million IRA to fall back on, which means he could give every Wal Mart employee $100, and still have $150 million in his non-IRA assets left over.

$100 is about what an average Wal Mart employee makes in 2 days.

On which they pay a higher tax rate than the Mittens does on his $20 million annual salary.

Freaking moochers.

Who makes more in two days, Jason or Steve?

I am always amazed at people who think the problem is that the U.S. is UNDER-taxed. Federal spending has exploded- almost doubled in the last 12 years. And the tax cuts on the top rates and the two wars account for only 15-20% of it.
The U.S. has one of the most progressive tax systems among industrialized countries. I'm for tax reform to remove loopholes and reduce rates, but the only way to fix things is to cut government. And the biggest items to cut are Medicare, Medicaid and the defense budget. But the discretionary budget is out of hand too and can be reduced.
I agree that a Ryan-Rubio ticket would have been doing much better, mainly because Romney has a tin ear when it comes to messaging.
I'm also amazed at people who think Obama is good for the middle class. Obama wants enlarged government way beyond the means of the economy to pay. Therefore, the huge debts and deficits are leading to the Fed's massive increase of the money supply which is killing the middle class. Resulting gas and food inflation acts as a stealth tax. Very high unemployment numbers. Stagnant growth. The middle class is being destroyed by these big-government policies.

Well said.

The US IS undertaxed dummy. Taxes as a percent of GDP are the lowest the have been in over 50 years, and are the second or third lowest among the OECD.

[has chart]

"...Thanks to the child tax credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, a fair number of working families with young children pay no income tax; thanks to the exemption on Social Security, many older Americans pay no income tax. But in middle age, close to 80 percent of the population pays income taxes, and even more, of course, pay federal taxes of some kind.

So the notion that almost half of our citizens are grifters isn’t just vile; it’s also based on a complete misunderstanding of tax realities..."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/taxes-over-the-life-cycle/

You're right that federal spending has exploded in the last 12 years, but it was George I who exploded it:

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor

This from marketwatch.com, part of News Corp.

Actually, though, the US has one of the least progressive tax systems among industrialized countries. Effective taxes are:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/18/us/effective-income-tax-rates.html

People who make $2 million pay the same tax rate as people who make $250,000, and not much more than people who make $90,000.

Fully agree on Medicare, Medicaid, and the defense budget. Solution for Medicare, Medicaid = Single Payer. Solution for Defense = cut.

Democrats would do all of those things; Republicans would do none of them, so I don't know why you think Ryan-Rubio would be a better ticket: Ryan would eliminate all capital gains taxes, which means that the top 1% would see 43% of their income tax free.

The Fed's increase in the money supply does not affect the middle class at all, unless you can tell me how they do.

Given what you support - "cut Medicare, Medicaid and the defense budget" - you should be a Democrat.

Who cares who exploded it.

You can't just look at effective tax rates steve. You are ignoring VATs and other taxes that other countries impose, that are quite regressive. I'll search and post the studies showing the U.S. has one of the most progressive tax systems.

Bush was a bad liberal spender, but Obama has increased spending at an even greater rate than Bush.

Ryan-Wyden is the best solution for Medicare- give control and choice back to individuals, and competition will control costs. All Democrats would do is increase government and costs would continue to skyrocket.

Fed increasing the money supply leads to gas and commodity inflation, which raises costs in a regressive way which is killing the middle class.

Only an idiot would look at tax revenue to GDP as an effective measure of the level of taxation. From Logan Albright:

One potential concern with using the revenue to GDP ratio as a legislative target is that it leads to policy decisions that violate common sense. For example, a policy that would actually reduce GDP while holding revenue constant would increase the revenue to GDP ratio, but would also be unambiguously bad for the country as a whole. Conversely, a policy that would increase GDP by 5% and tax revenue by 3% might be criticized as harmful to the tax situation, despite the obvious benefits of high economic growth and increased revenue.

Historical revenue to GDP ratios mean little in the absence of proper context. Without also looking at a number of other factors such as growth rates and government spending, attempts to tie high ratios to economic prosperity are disingenuous, and it is a non sequitur to claim that, since federal tax revenue was 20% of GDP in the Clinton years, a similar ratio today would yield positive results.

International comparisons are also problematic. Factors such as labor and capital productivity may cause increases in GDP that outpace increases in tax revenue, particularly in larger, more developed countries like the United States. Additionally, the increase of waste and inefficiency that necessarily comes with larger populations, and by extension larger bureaucracy, may give small countries an advantage in terms of revenue to GDP that it not helpful for policy analysis.

Perhaps most importantly, measuring tax revenue based on the size of the economy gives no information whatsoever on the deficit situation or the ability to finance federal programs, the main fiscal issues with which we are supposedly concerned. It does no good to celebrate a high revenue to GDP ratio if the spending to GDP ratio is higher still. A brief glance a Greece’s economy makes this point abundantly clear. The most recent numbers put Greece’s revenue to GDP ratio at about 30%, significantly higher than the United States. However, that country also has a spending to GDP ratio of over 50%, hence their current fiscal difficulties.

It seems logical that in a political climate dominated by news of debt crises in Europe and unsustainable deficits at home, it makes more sense to measure tax revenues, not as a percentage of GDP, but as a percentage of federal spending. By focusing on this metric, we are able to observe similar historical trends (naturally the ratio will be higher in times of surplus than in times of deficit) while avoiding the potential for the types of counterintuitive policies described above.

By using a metric focused on spending rather than output, we can obtain a more accurate picture of how our fiscal situation compares to that of other countries and to our own past. For example, the revenue to spending ratio in the U.S. is currently about 57% percent, while the same ratio in Greece is only slightly better at 60%. Ireland comes in at a ratio of 58%, and Spain measures 63%.

By contrast, the countries that are doing well are the ones with higher tax revenue as a share of spending. Switzerland has a ratio of almost 90% despite a tax burden that is no higher than that of Greece, and China, which has often been noted for its high rate of economic growth, has a ratio of 76%. Finally Sweden, whose economy grew at an impressive rate of 4.4% last year, has a ratio of 84%.

We can also address the concerns about historical tax revenues. In 1950, a prosperous year and the last time revenues as a share of GDP were as low as they are today, revenues as a share of spending were an impressive 92%, and during the much lauded Clinton years, when the revenue to GDP ratio rose to 20%, the revenue to spending ratio was 104%.[3] These numbers demonstrate that comparisons revenue to spending correlate more closely, across both time and space, with economic success than does the traditional revenue to GDP measure.

By adopting a revenue to spending ratio as our legislative target, it becomes easier to draw meaningful comparisons with other nations, as well as with our own history. The two sides may disagree on how to reduce the ballooning budget deficit, but through the use of an appropriate, common sense metric for analysis, we can ensure that the problem, at least, is clear and obvious to all, and minimize the risk of distracting legislation that fails to address the real issue.

And steve, you know that the Nutting article was completely debunked. He made a fool of himself with that article.

“You know, a year from now, I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress, but there is still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

(Obama on NBC's The Today Show, 2/2/09).

Keep in mind our president accomplished nothing his first 2 years with a democratic Congress.

I greatly dislike both candidates equally, however..
"If at first change doesn't succeed, change change again." truthskr10 9/18/12

It's intellectually dishonest for liberals to keep hiding behind payroll taxes as some justification for why it's ok for half the country not to pay income taxes. Social Security receipts are supposed to by law stay inside the SS Trust, and in fact, receipts about equal outflows now.

If you want to change how SS is funded, have that discussion, but don't pretend they're not free riding off the rest of the federal government's operations.

First, crescent, as LICC states, a tax is a tax is a tax. Ergo, payroll taxes are taxes, as are state taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes.

Second, that 49% includes the elderly, who pay no income tax on social security, and students, who don't have a lot of income, and the very poor. The actual figure of people who don't pay income tax is around 10%, and they are the very poor.

LICC, I agree with you that you have to count VAT (including 0-rated VAT), but I don't know that the Nutting article was completely debunked. And I also don't believe that measuring tax revenue as a % of GDP is defective, as that is what all economists do.

Many of those taxes (property, sales) do not very with income. Then, why are we measuring them as a percentage of income?

The only way to make the tax base match equally with income is to have the rich pay $200 for pants while a less fortunate one pays $20 for the same one. Property taxes should very with something uncorrelated like income too instead of asset value.

You mean "vary," not "very"?

Precisely b/c the taxes don't vary with income is why they are regressive. The fact that Social Security contributions stop at $110k, added to the fact that L/T cap gains are taxed at a maximum of 15%, makes the tax code regressive: including both sides of Social Security, the taxes on wages are higher than on L/T capital gains, BEFORE income tax comes due, and excluding almost 3% of Medicare, assessed on wages but not on capital gains.

That is why even the poorest people pay a higher percentage of their income in total tax than Mittens does: they pay Social Security and Medicare on all of their wages BEFORE income tax even accrues, which is above his total tax rate.

Are capital gains income?

Is Social Security a tax?

short and sweet:

"That is why even the poorest people pay a higher percentage of their income in total tax than Mittens does: they pay Social Security and Medicare on all of their wages BEFORE income tax even accrues, which is above his total tax rate."

Here steve explains quite well how it is that many of the 47% Romney so disdains pay taxes at a higher rate that he did, in the one year he has come clean with! It would be great to see those other years.

Interesting that, in vetting Ryan and other potential VP's, he required that they provide 10 years of returns. ha!

A tax being defined as regressive is by circumstance, not design. They are not meant to be progressive, make no claim to be progressive, and don't believe there is even a conversation on righteousness to be had on progressivity.

hunter is right, as usual. Capital gains aren't indexed for inflation. SS was meant to be a forced saving mechanism.

You are simply setting up the country for capital flight if you continue to place the burden for funding the government's operation on a minority.

The irony is that for L/T capital gains all you have to do is sit on your thumbs and wait a year and be taxed at 15%, whereas for 2080 hours of blood, sweat, toil and tears a year, you have the honor of paying taxes at a rate of almost twice that.

Excluding the fact that property tax (paid directly or through rent) and state and city and sales and other taxes make up a much larger percentage of your income than what Mittens pays on his money.

15% on "carried interest" - that is, claiming the capital gains tax rate on somebody else's money!

Great deal, if you can get it.

What I don't like about Mitt Romney:
I don't know what he stands for
What I don't like about Barack Obama
I know what he stands for

If someone owns shares of a corporation and receives dividends, are both the corporate taxes that must be paid before there is money to pay dividends , and the taxes paid bythe individual , both included in the formula for determining the individual's tax been?

Here's the truth about who doesn't pay tax:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-47-percent-fantasy/2012/09/18/1728482a-01aa-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html

RS - I'm not a fan of B.O. either, but you'll have to specify why you don't like him. I don't like him b/c he has no spine: that's personal, not policy.

Had he extended Medicare to all, I would have been happy with him.

End the deal on carried interest if you want. See how much it does to plug the budget hole.

If that corporation employs people and therefore has to contribute for payroll taxes, will the pro rata amount be included on the individual shareholder's tax burden for purposes of determining if taxes are progressive or regressive?

I'm not saying that the special benefits available to Mitt are right - the whole carried interest benefit, just as one example, is wrong a far as I'm concerned. So are the benefits available to founders of companies, much of whose stock appreciation is not risk capital but rather well deserved _wages_.

But the whole conversation has to start with why we need the government to be so big and growing, regardless of who brought it to this point.

This focus on Romney's specific tax situation is silly. Focus on what really matters.
From Greg Mankiw:

During my recent testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, I cited an OECD statistic that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system among industrialized nations.

http://taxfoundation.org:81/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-households-much-us

From Clive Crook in The Atlantic:

Income taxes in America are more progressive than in other rich countries--according to an authoritiative official study which, to my knowledge, has not been contradicted. The OECD's report "Growing Unequal", on poverty and inequality in industrial countries, includes a table that provides two measures of income tax progressivity in 2005. This is evidently the source of de Rugy's numbers. Here they are in an excel file. According to one measure, America's income taxes were the most progressive of the 24 countries in the sample, except for Ireland. According to the other, they were the most progressive full stop. (A more recent OECD report, "Divided We Stand", uses different data, a smaller sample of countries and a different measure of progressivity: the results are similar.)

Before you ask, this ranking takes account of employee-side payroll tax as well as the federal income tax.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/us-taxes-really-are-unusually-progressive/252917/

It's a start to plug the hole, eh? Along with paying Social Security and Medicare on capital gains, l/t and s/t, as well as dividends at the same rate as regular income, and watch how the income tax rates could go down, and how long Social Security and Medicare would last.

This is really funny, too:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/mitt-romney-needs-to-stop-talking/2012/09/18/ab47761a-019c-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_blog.html?hpid=z3

B.O. doesn't understand foreign policy. He believes more in equality of outcome than equal opportunity. And he ceded economic policy to the guys that created the crisis at the expense of the larger economy. There's more but this is three big points.

And the OECD study doesn't take into account sales taxes and VATs, which would make the U.S. system even more progressive in comparison.

And 100% of poor people pay ZERO in capital gains taxes ... why are they even allowed to vote?

> It's a start to plug the hole, eh?

well if it's all about getting a start, we'd get $20 billion if we subjected all non-paying income tax returns to a $300 true Alternative Minimum Tax, about the same as ending the carried interest rule.

Sounds fair to me.

I'm a little more open minded than Alan, either they should pay capital gains taxes OR they should have identification.

I can agree with changing the carried interest rule, as it is effectively advisor compensation rather than capital investment. But,
Since 1955, every time capital gains tax rates have been reduced, capital gains tax revenues have gone up. And every time capital gains tax rates have been raised, capital gains tax revenues have gone down.

"Romney’s 47% Claim Rankles Conservative Policy Wonks

While conservative activists are circling their wagons around Mitt Romney and encouraging to stand by his claim that the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes are essentially mooching off the government, prominent policy voices on the right are dismayed by his comments – both because they’re inaccurate, and because they cut against fundamental conservative causes. Romney argued that the 47 percent – of which three-fifths pay payroll taxes and one-fifth are…"

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romney-47-percent-rankles-conservative-policy-wonks.php?ref=fpa

________________________________

"Romney’s Libya Response May Have Done Real DamageMitt Romney’s tough – and inaccurate – response to a fatal attack on the American Consulate in Libya last week is not sitting well with voters, according to several new polls. Romney drew widespread condemnation in the press, including from some Republicans, for accusing the president of “sympathiz[ing]” with rioters who stormed diplomatic compounds in Egypt and Libya while the situation was still ongoing. Few Republican lawmakers backed Romney up as the White House accused him of …"

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romneys-libya-remarks-may-have-done-real-damage.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

________________________________

The point is he is a TERRIBLE candidate. CONSERVATIVES are attacking him over the Libya comments and now this.

"And the OECD study doesn't take into account sales taxes and VATs, which would make the U.S. system even more progressive in comparison."

Lies. It takes into account ALL taxes.

Seldom right and wrong again jason. From Peter Whiteford, who wrote the section in the OECD report:

As others have pointed out this measure includes all direct taxes on individuals so it includes income taxes and employee social security contributions, but not employer payroll taxes. It also doesn’t include sales taxes, but these are much heavier in most other OECD countries, and not as progressive as direct taxes, so if you added indirect taxes in through some sort of modelling it is almost certain that the USA would still have the most progressive overall tax system.

A couple of notes:

First, the report cited is from 2008; the latest report is from 2011, and this is what it says:

"However, the redistributional effects of tax regimes depend on the percentage of total income actually paid in taxes, the so-called “effective tax rate”. Just prior to the 2008-09 global downturn, effective tax rates of the top percentile group were in the order of 35-38% for a group of typical OECD countries (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden)."

The top effective tax rate in the US is NOWHERE NEAR 35-38%.

In addition, it says:

"In OECD countries today, the average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10% – a ratio of 9 to 1. However, the ratio varies widely from one country to another. It is much lower than the OECD average in the Nordic and many continental European countries, but reaches 10 to 1 in Italy, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom; around 14 to 1 in Israel, Turkey, and the United States; and 27 to 1 in Mexico and Chile."

If you download the Excel file you'll see that the number that they are referring to, "Share of taxes of the richest decile" in the use is 45.1%, versus an average of 31.6% for the OECD. All that says is that in the US, the richest decile pays 45.1% of all federal taxes.

If you combine that with the income distribution figures from above, which shows that the US has less equal income distribution than the OECD average (about 40% less evenly distributed than the average), then it makes absolute sense that in the US the rich would pay more tax: BECAUSE THEY MAKE A DISPROPORTIONATE SHARE OF THE INCOME.

So what is being claimed as proof of progressiveness in taxation is no such thing - it is the result of an uneven income distribution, where in the US the richest 10% make 14 times more than the poorest 10%, whereas the average for the OECD is 9 times.

If that is true - which it is - then in the US the richest 10%'s tax burden should be 55% higher ((14-9)/9) than the average for the OECD, but it's not. The average share of taxes of the richest decile in the OECD is 31.6. Then if taxes were not progressive or regressive the richest 10% of the US's population should pay 55% more tax as a percentage of total taxes than the OECD average.

But they do not. The OECD average is 31.6%. 155% of 31.6% = 48.98%. But the richest 10% of US taxpayers only pay 45.1% of all taxes.

Therefore, taxes are MORE regressive in the US than the OECD average.

Sorry.

Oops! Typo, it should say:

If you download the Excel file you'll see that the number that they are referring to, "Share of taxes of the richest decile" IN THE USA is 45.1%, versus an average of 31.6% for the OECD. All that says is that in the US, the richest decile pays 45.1% of all federal taxes.

Those are two different concepts steve. Progressivity of the tax system is different from income distribution. The report clearly shows that the US has one of the most, if not the most, progressive tax systems. And the highest effective rate does not determine progressivity- you need to factor how it is applied and what the other rates are.

That said, the OECD report did compare progressivity of the tax systems with income distribution of the different nations, and even in that regard in the U.S. those receiving the highest decile of income are paying more as a percentage of taxes paid than all but one other country.

And, for the record, the study takes this into account:

"Household disposable income inequality (taking into account public cash transfers received and direct taxes paid)."

Therefore, it includes all direct taxes paid, which includes income tax, and cash transfers received, which would be social security, unemployment benefits, etc.

The fact remains: the top 10% of earners in the OECD make 9 times what the bottom 10% make, and their share of total taxes paid is 31.6%, to keep the ratio between total income and total taxes paid constant between the OECD average and the US, in the US, where the top 10% makes 14 times what the bottom 10% pays, to equal the OECD average the top 10% of taxpayers would have to pay 48.98% of all taxes.

But they do not. They only pay 45.1% of all taxes.

Therefore, the US tax system is LESS progressive than the OECD average, not more.

Interesting viewpoint on the inequality assertions made by liberals, from the National Review:

Most studies of inequality, including the recent widely reported study by the Congressional Budget Office, rely on IRS-reported taxable income. But, as studies by the Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds and others show, reports of skyrocketing incomes among the top 1 percent of earners may be distorted by changes in the tax code that have resulted in more wealth being reported as taxable income. These tax changes caused businesses to switch from filing under the corporate tax system to filing as individuals, and executives to switch from accepting stock options taxed as capital gains to nonqualified stock options taxed as salaries. Simultaneously, the reductions in income-tax rates in 1986 caused much previously unreported income to show up on tax returns.

At the same time, incomes among lower- and middle-income workers have been shifting from cash wages to non-cash benefits such as health insurance and pensions. These non-cash benefits frequently do not show up as taxable income even though they have value to the worker. In fact, a recent study by Mark Warshawsky of the Social Security Advisory Board suggests that nearly all of the recent increase in earnings inequality “can be explained by the rapid increase in the cost of health insurance employee benefits, and that therefore [there] has not been as significant increase, if any, in inequality of compensation.”

Similarly, many studies looking at low-income Americans fail to account for non-cash social-welfare benefits such as food stamps, housing subsidies, and Medicaid. Fully accounting for all of these factors suggests that the gap between rich and poor may not be nearly as large as thought, and that inequality may not be growing at all.

Studies also show that what inequality does exist is not the result of the Bush tax cuts or a failure to spend more on social-welfare programs, but on the transformation of the American economy from a focus on manufacturing to information and technology. This change puts a greater premium on education. As a result, the incomes of high-school dropouts or those with just high-school degrees have stagnated while incomes for many college graduates and those with graduate-level educations have increased significantly. The unfortunate fact is that despite massive increases in education spending, large segments of our society remain unprepared for a 21st-century economy. That is a tragedy, but it has nothing to do with tax cuts for the rich.

I'm glad they cited all of these studies, without ever citing a single one.

This is pure nonsense:

"reports of skyrocketing incomes among the top 1 percent of earners may be distorted by changes in the tax code that have resulted in more wealth being reported as taxable income."

Income that is taxed now was taxed then. It's telling that he gives no examples.

"These tax changes caused businesses to switch from filing under the corporate tax system to filing as individuals"

That would be the introduction of S-Corporations, which occurred in (and I wish I could make this bold) 1958!

Crap.

"and executives to switch from accepting stock options taxed as capital gains to nonqualified stock options taxed as salaries."

Executives didn't do that switch - companies did, to get a tax break. But whether taxed as capital gains or as salaries, IT WAS STILL REPORTABLE INCOME.

"Simultaneously, the reductions in income-tax rates in 1986 caused much previously unreported income to show up on tax returns."

Hmm. What might that be? Do they mean that people stopped cheating in 1986, because they would pay less income tax?

"Studies also show that what inequality does exist is not the result of the Bush tax cuts or a failure to spend more on social-welfare programs, but on the transformation of the American economy from a focus on manufacturing to information and technology."

What study/ies? WHAT ONE(S)?

I don't have the details steve, but if I had to guess:

They are talking about individual taxable income instead of corporate taxable income. I don't think they are referring to S-Corps. They are probably referring to LLCs, which really didn't become a commonly used business entity type until the 1980s. Businesses that use the LLC form instead of the corporate form lead to the business owners reporting individual income on the business' profits, instead of the corporation reporting the income.

I don't know enough about the switch to nonqualified stock options.

When individual tax rates were lowered in 1986, the differential between personal taxes and corporate taxes made it beneficial to convert to LLC formats to have the lower personal rate.

To sum up, it seems to me that the liberal memes of a regressive U.S. tax system and a huge growth of income inequality doesn't hold water.

instead of bringing people the changes he promised, obama starts to ask for changes in all kinds of events including people's weddings............

how did he change people's weddings?

He kept lowering the limbo stick so people would fall down faster.

And if you don't believe that, Ħǜnŧɘŗβbűrĝ, you need to stop listening to the liberal media.