# Romney and taxes: Morally unfit to be President **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 24, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492 "2012-01-24T11:49:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/121 "2012-01-24T19:56:24Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > The hell they aren’t. I guess George Soros must have stolen all those jets. Believe it or not, one can actually support policies which don’t directly benefit oneself. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/122 "2012-01-24T19:56:43Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > The hell they aren’t. I don’t know what else to tell you: they aren’t. I’ll grant you that it’s sometimes amusing to see liberals caricatured as greedy poor people and as stingy, know-it-all snobs at the same time, but at some point we have to acknowledge they can’t both be universally true. I am sure that urban poor people vote Democratic at a significant clip, and I’m sure that the rural poor are overwhelmingly Republican. The main divide between the parties seems to be urban and rural. It’s not high income vs. low income. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/123 "2012-01-24T19:57:21Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Yea, but the OP specifically said he wasn’t making the argument that you accuse him of making. Indeed, three of the five sentences that made up the OP were stressing this point. > > The weird knee-jerk to construct a strawman out of the argument the OP is _explicitly_ not making by a sizable chunk of the posters in this thread is borderline Pavlovian. Let me ask you - Do you believe that Democrats in the top 1% of income pay less of their income as a percentage than middle-class Americans? If so, do you believe that they want to change the tax code so that they pay more? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/124 "2012-01-24T20:01:44Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > In what way would we force him to give money to LDS? Charity is not a proxy for taxation. Then why is it tax-deductible? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/125 "2012-01-24T20:04:36Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Let me ask you - > Do you believe that Democrats in the top 1% of income pay less of their income as a percentage than middle-class Americans? > If so, do you believe that they want to change the tax code so that they pay more? Let me ask you - Are you randomly throwing out new arguments instead of responding to my point that your “response to the OP” was a response to an argument that he spent three-fifths of his OP stressing he _was not making_? If so, would you not do that? ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/126 "2012-01-24T20:05:00Z")
Let’s back up and take a look at the big picture. Why do we need candidates to disclose their tax returns? So we can see where they get their income from so we can judge them better. For instance, if a candidate gets all his money from BP dividends and who advocates letting BP off the hook for its oil spills, we as voters need to know that. Similarly, if a candidate claims “not to be a lobbyist” but who made over $300,000 for his services as a “historian” and “Not a lobbyist” we voters need to know that the candidate is telling us a whopper. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/127 "2012-01-24T20:31:31Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Similarly, if a candidate claims “not to be a lobbyist” but who made over $300,000 for his services as a “historian” and “Not a lobbyist” we voters need to know that the candidate is telling us a whopper. No, see, Newt hired a lawyer with expertise in lobbying to tell him how to lobby without being a lobbyist. Therefore he wasn’t a lobbyist. If Romney wants to defend the carried interest rule in the fall then more power to him. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/128 "2012-01-24T20:33:56Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Actually I can walk you thru how _you_ came to that conclusion. > [ul][li]Mitt Romney used tax deductions.[/li][li]Mitt Romney is a Republican.[/li][li]Ergo, tax deductions are morally wrong.[/ul][/li] Your arguments towards me are nonsensical, and I haven’t said anything remotely like this. So rather than indulge you by treating you as if you were actually arguing something and continuing to stink up this thread, I created a [pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=639576) instead. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/129 "2012-01-24T20:48:06Z")
_And so the disciples said to him, “Rabbi, is it just that we should pay taxes?” And he replied: “Show me the bill that is used to pay the taxes.” And so they handed him a dollar bill. And he said “Whose face is this on the bill?”, and they replied “Washington’s”. And so he said “Render unto Washington that which is Washington’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.”._ Taxes aren’t the government taking your money by force. Taxes are the government taking back the government’s money. Money isn’t a fundamentally real thing; it’s just a construct of society. Society as a whole can do whatever it likes with it, and the body that makes decisions on behalf of society is what we call the government. They have the right to set whatever tax rate they want, since it’s their money to begin with. If the government wanted to set the rate at 99%, they could. It would be counterproductive, but it would not be immoral. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/130 "2012-01-24T21:13:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Then why is it tax-deductible? > > Regards, > Shodan Are you serious? First of all a LOT of things are deductible. My home mortgage interst is deductible, paying my mortgage is not a proxy for taxes. At the very most we can say that government wants to encourage charitable giving so they subsidize your giving to the tune of your marginal tax rate. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/131 "2012-01-24T21:15:33Z")
[Ben Adler writes in _The Nation:_](http://www.thenation.com/blog/165836/problem-mitt-romneys-tax-rate) > [@](#): > > The reason is that our tax code gives preferential treatment to unearned income, such as dividend payments and capital gains. Capital gains, which are overwhelmingly earned by the wealthiest Americans, are taxed at only 15 percent. That’s why, as Brad Plumer shows at the Washington Post, our wealthiest presidential candidates have often paid the lowest rates. This is obviously unjust. The argument in favor of this policy is that it encourages investment and by extension economic growth. Unfortunately, it’s not true: the economy has grown the most during periods when the capital gains tax rate was closest to the income tax rate. That’s why, as I’ve argued before, liberals should make taxing capital gains as regular income a top priority and a major deficit reduction proposal. > > Conservatives, naturally, have found an intellectually dishonest justification for Romney. They argue that since Romney’s dividend income was first taxed as corporate income, “a competent campaign, and candidate, would explain that Romney’s real federal tax rate on his investment income was more than 40 percent (being conservative, after deductions and such), since the revenue stream was subject to both a personal tax rate and the corporate tax rate,” writes John Hood of National Review. “A competent campaign would then point out that state taxes would bring the effective income tax rate on Romney’s investment income to 50 percent or higher.” > > The Wall Street Journal editorial page made the same argument. But, as Timonthy Noah points out in The New Republic, this is just hypocrisy. Corporations are separate legal entities from their owners. When corporations lose money, their owners are not personally liable. Conservatives have taken this idea to its logical extreme, as in the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision, holding that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals and so their spending on political messaging cannot be limited. > > But if corporations are legally separate entities, then they obviously should pay taxes separately too. It’s also worth noting that if you are a housekeeper paid out of your employer’s after-tax income, conservatives never argue that your effective income tax rate is doubled and you should receive a special exemption. Everyone’s income taxes come from somewhere that may have been previously taxed – businesses are paid by customers using their after tax income—but conservatives object only when it’s a rich person, in the form of corporate profits or capital gains, who is subject to “double taxation.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/132 "2012-01-24T21:24:51Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Say you have $100,000 dollars. You are approached with an opportunity to invest this sum into a bee farm. Being a shrewd investor you guess that there is a 50/50 chance that you will either double your investment, or lose the entire sum. > > Say they raise the capital gains tax to 30%. If your investment succeeds you will recieve $70,000. If it fails you will lose $100,000. You decide the investment is not worth the risk. The bee farm is unable to hire a new bee keeper. > > Now say they eliminate the capital gains tax. You proceed with the investment and a new bee keeper is hired. The farm thrives and you invest more into the farm and another bee keeper is hired. > > Is there anything wrong with this scenario? Yes. The expected value of the investment, before taxes, is 0. (.5 \*0 + .5 \*200K) = $100K - $100K = 0. So, whoever makes this investment is a nitwit. As mentioned, you can deduct losses from other gains, and even carry them over. As a survivor of the bubble, I know about this. [Here](http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/2088.html) is a site which lists capital gains rates since 1988. You’ll note that the rates during the Internet boom were far higher than they are today. Somehow people managed to be able to invest even so. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/133 "2012-01-24T21:30:53Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If you think the government doesn’t force anyone to pay their taxes, try not paying and see what happens. > Regards, > Shodan Government also forces you not to murder, not to rape, not to speed, and not to park in handicapped spots. Boo hoo. Assuming that you are mildly interested in having an army to protect us from Communist Islamic zombies, how do you propose we pay for it? The government is using just as much force to extract the 1% to pay for that as to pay for welfare queens. Perhaps you would sell TV rights to the army reality show? Ask for good faith donations? Set up a Super PAC? Get from those freeloaders with no income? BTW, your attempts at logic are making the baby Aristotle cry. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/134 "2012-01-24T21:31:14Z")
The notion that we must give a preferential tax rate to encourage investment is a crock. Equity investments are their own reward, returning much larger gains than bonds or saving accounts. What else are the wealthy going to do with the money they cannot spend fast enough? Stuff it under the mattress? Will they really settle for less than 1% interest if we don’t bribe them with their own low tax rate? The 15% capital gains rate does nothing to encourage investment, it just grows the deficit. If we are going to run government like a business, we should tax whatever the market will bear; any CEO will tell you leaving money on the table like that is irresponsible to the stockholders (that’s us!). ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/135 "2012-01-24T21:57:02Z")
Warren Buffett: In response to the charge that investors will stop working if they get taxed with a higher rate: “I remember when capital gains were 40 percent, people didn’t go home at 3:00 in the afternoon and say, ‘I’m going to a movie, I’ve paid too much in taxes already.’” ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/136 "2012-01-24T22:03:38Z")
NM…I see the comment was from Buffet looking at what you wrote. Could I get a link for that? I don’t see the average effective capital gains tax rate higher than 25% since the 50’s, so would be interested in what he meant there. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/137 "2012-01-24T22:06:42Z")
It’s all there in **Voyager** ’s cite. As recently as 2003 if your marginal rate was 38.6% and you owned the asset for less than a year the rate was 38.6%. Actually it looks like 40% is what it will revert to Jan 1 2013 for high-earners on short-term gains. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/138 "2012-01-24T22:10:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Government also forces you not to murder, not to rape, not to speed, and not to park in handicapped spots. I’m glad to see that you recognize that I was correct - the government does force you to pay taxes, and **jshore** ’s allegation to the contrary was nonsense. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/139 "2012-01-24T22:11:41Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > NM…I see the comment was from Buffet looking at what you wrote. Could I get a link for that? I don’t see the average effective capital gains tax rate higher than 25% since the 50’s, so would be interested in what he meant there. > > -XT The max capital gains rate (which seems to be what people usually give if they want to summarize the rate in a single number) was 39.9% in the late 70’s. [I presume](http://forbestadvice.com/Money/Taxes/Federal-Tax-Rates/Historical_Federal_Capital_Gains_Tax_Rates_History.html) thats what he meant. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492/140 "2012-01-24T22:12:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I’m glad to see that you recognize that I was correct - the government does force you to pay taxes, and **jshore** ’s allegation to the contrary was nonsense. > > Regards, > Shodan I assume you also rage about having to sleep every day or needing to eat and excrete. Damn the Democrats for taking the unprecedented stance of taxing people. Damn them!111one [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-and-taxes-morally-unfit-to-be-president/610492.md?page=8)