Rationally Discussing the "Forty-Seven Percent"

The big hullabaloo the media is pushing concerns a video that Mother Jones magazine heartily made available on the Internet, which instantly went viral. The remarks were made at a closed-session strategy meeting held by Mitt Romney in May of 2012, transcribed as follows:

 All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.  That’s an entitlement.  And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… And I mean the president starts off with 48, 49 … he starts off with a huge number.  These are people who pay no income tax.  Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.  So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.  So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to convince the five to ten percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.

How angry the progressives are for Romney making such a remark! How dare he face reality!

All over the primary statement that 47% of Americans DO NOT PAY FEDERAL INCOME TAXES.

Fact: They do pay the taxes, forced from their payroll checks all year long – then at the end of the year, beginning following year – they get it all back courtesy of the confusing deduction allowance mostly based upon entitlements.

Fact: Americans, apparently most of those 47%, demand entitlements. Those entitlements neither are not within constitutional rights nor within the limitations of Congress set forth by the Constitution of the United States. In effect, the income tax system itself is unconstitutional – a direct tax removed from your paycheck without your permission or agreement from wages YOU earned, not the government.

In this election, we have seen and heard how Mitt Romney is attacked for being a wealthy American – money he earned through smart investing and business savvy. That savvy could certainly be applied to what is wrong with America economically combined with the recommendations of Rep. Ron Paul in that the Federal Reserve system be audited and revamped, as well as the tax system be overhauled. The least reform of the tax system would to place a flat tax on income for all citizens (plus social security and Medicare payments) with NO deductions and simple post card paperwork at end of year.

In this election, there is much criticism of Romney, but little attention to Obama’s job performance by the media over the last four years.

I mentioned in a previous article that Chris Cillizza in his opinion article at Washington Post entitled Mitt Romney’s Darkest Hour – written with an atmosphere of doom over the Republican candidate.

According to Newsmax, using a WSJ/NBC poll, Obama has a 5-point edge over Romney.

I guess this could be possible - mainstream media has become a major political tool for the Democrats. Ignoring Obama’s transgressions or downplaying them, while pinpointing any negativity they can find about Romney.

It is a perfect object for the media to focus upon and ignore evidence that points toward negligence on the part of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the September 11^th embassy attacks. This may also make disappointed conservative voters on edge because many think that Romney’s campaign is weak. Many are also doubtful that he will stick to what Americans want and need – a serious reform in our federal government. There was a decisive candidate, a constitutional candidate, in the primary elections – but too many ignore him, the media made him look the fool, and the GOP elite establishment thought he is “too radical”. Ron Paul would have torn huge holes in Obama’s propaganda machine. Romney failed at the last shot for presidential candidate because it seem he: (a) cannot sustain constant fire from media and progressives; and (b) has a record of indecision and trying to please everyone instead of just doing the constitutional thing.

There is no question that Romney is a man of good character. His personal life is impeccable. His business success is admirable. It takes fortitude to make a stand against those who enjoy making oranges from a cart of apples.

Where was the pinpointing sarcasm of the media and pundit bloggers when Obama said this at a San Francisco fundraiser in 2008:

It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Those remarks were made known as soon as they were made, not four months later. That remark plus the one about businesses could not operate without government are far more insulting than the truthful statement that 47% of Americans pay NO income tax.

Obama has a small margin if one considers polls have any indication what voters will actually do. However, elections have been won by small margins before, and there is the matter of electoral votes. According to the media, Obama leads on those as well.

I guess American voters are going along with the posters that read: OBAMA THEN OBAMA NOW.

Romney’s campaign has had its jumps and starts since the primary elections. He certainly lacks the nifty slogans that Obama people come up with. 

It is no wonder that skeptics call this his “darkest hour”. 

It is why (one of the reasons) why I did not support him in the primary election, just like I didn’t support GW Bush when he ran in a primary election. It always seems that American voters are constantly forced to choose the best out of the worst.  

Ron Paul is not popular because he has been dubbed a “libertarian”, like it was some evil word or a descriptive of a person who is nonsensical. The primary concern about Ron Paul as president is his stance on the long lasting advocacy against the federal drug war and citizens being arrested, indicted, and jailed for using marijuana for medical purposes. Ron Paul has been consistent when it comes to being a constitutionalist, a term that better describes him than a “libertarian-republican”.

Now we have a choice between Romney and Obama, just as we had a choice between Bush II and Al Gore.

The majority voters of Election 2008 provided Obama an opportunity to make good his promises and fix what Bush was blamed for - ignoring the fact that the Democrats held majority in Congress and there were too many RINOs as well.

With the present tax system there are various ways to not pay income taxes, after the deductions are figured in, and while those same people pay other forms of taxes; it is a testimony toward the fact that Congress must either repeal the 16^th amendment and replace the income tax system or make it a low flat tax with NO deductions. That means we will no longer hear the whiners complain about corporation welfare or that the middle class is getting screwed over by rich people. Everyone will pay the same rate. The beauty of the mathematics of percentages is that those who make more will pay more proportionally. Class welfare rhetoric solved – no more cry of “tax cuts for the rich” nonsense.

However, as John Hayward wrote at Human Events:

Much of the tax burden carried by people who don’t pay income taxes is invisible, by design. They don’t know about the layers of corporate tax built into the price of every product they buy, or the cost of regulations and mandates, which are taxes by other names.  Most working people don’t even think about the taxes withheld from their paychecks, which is one of the reasons America’s income tax slid smoothly and quickly from a small levy on the super-rich to a titanic growth-crushing burden that devours millions of hours of productivity just for compliance… and still doesn’t harvest enough loot to cover Washington’s extravagant spending.  A large volume of people in this country see themselves exactly the way Romney described them: they don’t think they’re paying much in the way of income taxes, so opposing tax cuts for other people is their default position. What really got Romney into trouble is the “my job is not to worry about those people” line. … Most media outlets seem uninterested in showing Romney’s full press conference – they’re mostly posting edited version of the conference that omit Romney’s strong prepared remarks, and relay only the subsequent Q&A session.
ABC News is an honorable exception … As Romney noted, the entire quote was part of a political discussion, and when he said “my job is not to worry about those people,” he was very clearly referring to his campaign strategy: there’s no point in worrying about winning their votes, because he probably can’t. … Romney is also right to ask for the entire tape of his comments at the May fundraiser to be released, instead of just selected snippets.  The Washington Post transcribed more of those selected passages, and they make it abundantly clear Romney was offering a blunt discussion of campaign strategy.

Toast to Himself

The five to ten percent of voters who continue to be starry-eyed for Obama are those who voted for them in 2008 – enthusiastically. They do not think Barack Obama is a failure, but they are disappointed with his policies that have not worked. They also do not want to admit being wrong about voting for him in 2008, despite overwhelming evidence that he and his cohorts are bad for America and corrupt as the trade unions they sponsor.

The voters Romney was discussing in his strategy remarks are those voters who believe they voted for Obama for the right reasons, but he just failed to carry out his promises of fixing the bloated national debt and other issues.

As Hayward wrote in his analysis:

We live in a “progressive” world where an increasingly small percentage of Americans pay most of the burden of government… and they are routinely excoriated for their reluctance to pay even more.  Dependency on government really is creeping further into the “middle class,” as part of a long-term strategy to make them vote exactly the way Romney described them.  And everyone is paying a truckload of taxes they can’t even see, making the perception of “progressive” taxation and benefits even more powerful than the mathematical reality.

What happened to the transparent government that Obama promised?

If any of that bothers you, you absolutely must vote for Mitt Romney in 2012.  If none of it troubles you, there’s little chance you were going to vote for him anyway.  It really shouldn’t bother anyone to hear him offer confirmation that he understands this.  The American electorate is not well-served by moving an increasing volume of our political discussion off-limits.  Making everyone afraid to discuss such a wide range of subjects increases the sense that we’re locked on cruise control as we approach the edge of the fiscal cliff. 

With the Chinese demonstrating against our embassy there, damaging an ambassador's automobile, it seems that at home and abroad the world has gone mad. The Chinese are angry at the US over some dispute with China, which US administration decided not to get involved with. It seems these days everyone is angry at the United States and Americans seem to be indecisive as to who to believe when it comes to national leadership.

Editorial Note: Lighthouse Journal could use constitutionally-minded guest writers interested in "The Search for Truth in a Sea of Misinformation".
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