This much I agree with. Actually, the federal government subsidizes wealth. That big fancy house with the huge local property tax bill? You get to put that on your schedule A along with the interest on the mortgage you bought it with. Thus, the government is in effect paying for part of your big fancy house.
The theory that his 2009 return contains at least one giant stinkbomb (not necessarily taking amnesty for previous hanky-panky) makes sense in light of the fact that Romney provided years of tax returns to the McCain VP vetting committee (presumably with the expectation that he would not be immediately laughed out of consideration). Obviously, these returns did not include 2009 (even if the older returns included indications of the aforementioned hanky-panky, they would probably be concealable in a miasma of green-eyeshade fiscalbabble and thus not as damaging as a straightforward 2009 amnesty filing).
His campaign can’t even execute that strategy – they just hung another eye-catching lampshade on the issue by sending everybody and his brother to go on the talk shows with a “Harry Reid Is A Big Mean Doodoo Head” script.
I’m starting to think it would be quite hard to cast a movie about the Romney campaign, now that Don Knotts is gone and Tim Conway is getting too old.
“ITES” means what?
Because it would kill his one asserted qualification for the job (Successful Businessman[tm]) deader than disco – inability to make additional money starting at such an already high level takes a special form of incompetence. (Having a zero or negative taxable income while net assets grow tike Topsy would get right back to the previously raised problem of destroying the “ONOZ the Job Creators[tm] are being overtaxed!” narrative.)
It’s the economy, stupid.
Problem with *that *is many more people blame the mess on Bush, and the policies Romney wants to reinstate, than on Obama. But yeah, that’s the only weapon Romney has - “The economy sucks, and I’m not Obama”.
Taxation, on net, puts more money into capital markets than it takes out of them. The purpose of money is to spend it, and that’s what governments do after they get it through taxation. The money has to keep moving around in order to do anything.
I have not seen anyone in the Obama campaign suggest that Romney has committed a any criminal acts. I am not going to vouch for every joe sixpack with an opinion, I’m sure some of them are misinformed. The only ones that count are those in the campaign, or the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, or elected Democrats. Of those, nobody is saying he did anything improper.
But he still has to own the fact that he pays a much lower tax rate than most people in the middle class, and if he paid no tax for even one year, it will be a big negative for his campaign, even if it was completely legal.
I think the current conservative spin is to work on lowering the bar. I’m hearing a lot now of how “they” are accusing Romney of all kinds of felonies and “they” want to see his returns as proof of this.
As I said, I’m guessing these rumors are actually being put out by conservatives who are really acting in support of Romney. When the returns do get released (because let’s face it, it’s going to happen at this point) they’ll have made the story about felonies - and that story will be false.
Meanwhile, the real accusations from his opponents - that Romney legally pays a shockingly small amount of taxes - will be proven true but will get buried on a back page.
To put it another way, Romney got a $70000+ tax break on his horse. His horse. I wish my hobbies were tax deductible.
The only way Romney would be considered brilliant is if he’s playing the perfect role of a rich tax avoider, like Stephen Colbert but in real life, and the ultimate plan is to use himself to show how utterly insane the tax codes are in order to build momentum to change it
I can’t find the actual quote but Obama’s campaign created the innuendo that Romney had committed illegal acts. ALthough more subtle than Reid, it is clear that the Democrat strategy is to make implications rather than direct attacks so that when Pubs respond to what was implied, the Dems can say, “We didn’t say that.”
He’s probably about like W. Has an IQ around 115, thinks he has an IQ of around 200, and devotes all his time to getting over.
You are mistaken.
How polite.
I was feeling charitable.
I suspect you’re thinking of the Obama campaign aide who pointed out that either
(a) Romney was in charge of Bain from 99 to 2001, as specified in the company’s SEC filings
or
(b) Romney was not in charge of Bain during that period, as he has since averred
And that, if (b) is true, then he lied on his SEC filings, and that lying on SEC filings is in fact criminal.
The Romney campaign I believe responded that he had “retroactively retired” which of course solved everything.
Needless to say, for anyone who can actually understand English or basic logic, the point of the argument is that Romney is lying now, not that he is a criminal.
(emphasis added)
cite
So is it your position that
- Stephanie Cutter and Bob Bauer are not associated with the Obama campaign?
- They are not implying that Romney committed a crime.
- Their phrasing does not allow for deniability i.e. if Romney says that Obama is accusing him of commiting a crime them Obama cannot say they never said that.
I took the comments about “illegal acts” to be referring to the tax record issue, not the Bain filings issue.