Wow, the SDMB looks almost buffoonish here. Tax returns absolutely will not have a meaningful effect on the election results in November. You guys act like you’re newborn babes just now becoming aware of a Presidential election. Several wealthy men have run for President in my life time and their large incomes have never hurt them. Further, it’s quite common knowledge, some 5+ years after guys like Warren Buffet started crowing about 17% effective tax rates for billionaires, that the super rich do not pay as much of their income in Federal income tax as do lower income persons.
Finally, Romney’s campaign isn’t the Committe to Re-Elect Billy Budd to the County Commission. If he’s releasing his tax returns it is because they’ve ran a poll showing that it won’t hurt him or that it hurts him less than refusing to release them.
This reminds me of DUIgate (when it broke not long before the election in 2000 that Bush had yet another DUI arrest/stop that wasn’t widely known) and various other things in the past that people made a huge deal out of at the time but never actually amounted to anything at all.
Perhaps those funds are funds that are not required to provide yearly capital returns. So, technically they ARE, present tense, taxed in the same way they would be in the United States, since they wouldn’t be taxed until he sells or liquidates them. However, once he sells them, they might have tax advantages galore.
I’m not saying that’s the case, I’m just trying to think like a weasel.
I don’t know…the country’s mood is very different than it was four years ago - way different than it was eight years ago. More pessimists, less optimists. And a lot more awareness about the gap between the rich and the poor and a larger belief that the rich “work and control the system to their benefit.”
And I’m not sure how “common” “common knowledge” is. A lot of people don’t believe Buffet. Others haven’t pieced together how it works. And some people live in a closet until the media hits them over the head with something. The question becomes - will this be a fire the media chooses to fan?
Finally, his response really does sound like he isn’t prepped for this one with polling and analysis. His answers to so many questions sound like he’s prepared and coached - this sounds different. He wouldn’t have prepped a response that included a reference to his $370,000 speaking income as not very much. He’s savvier than this - but perhaps like Batman - only when prepared.
One key difference is that GWB was running against a sitting “bucket of warm spit” (to coin a phrase), rather than against a sitting President who is actually doing right by the country.
And DWIs are something that I’m willing to bet the majority of Americans feel “well, it could have been me.” I think most people drive when they’ve know they’ve had perhaps just a LEETLE TEENY TINY TOO MUCH, but they feel they are “in control” enough to get home (I’m not saying its right or wrong, I’m just willing to bet there is a whole lot of ‘I haven’t been caught’).
Making millions of dollars a year and paying 15% in taxes is more of a “I wish it could be me” - and when the country is optimistic, it gets a pass under the “Joe the Plumber when I’m rich I don’t want to pay taxes” thought process. When the country is pessimistic, its less likely to.
Why? If they’re in the debates, talking about solutions to the deficit, and Romney says “we can’t possibly tax the Job Creators anymore, they’re already paying far too much!” Obama is well within reason to point out that Romney himself is a prime example that the super rich have way more room to be taxed.
The source of criticism isn’t that Romney makes a lot of money. It’s that he makes a ton of money yet thinks the super rich like him already pay more than their fair share, and the way we need to solve this deficit is to broaden the tax rate and tax people too poor to afford to pay taxes instead of him.
How in the world is that not a fair criticism?
We’re in a political climate of huge deficits and the idea that the country is broke, so we need to cut back in ways like shutting down schools, shutting down infrastructure projects, shutting down assistance programs. And it’s actually nonsense. The whole idea that the deficit is insurmountable and we’re just too broke to combat it. We’re still the richest country in the world, by far. The deficit could easily be cured by not giving historically low gift tax rates to the wealthy, and it’s obscene that it isn’t part of the discussion, and that it’s not an option on the table. The irony is that the republicans are saying that we’re being irresponsible by leaving this debt and legacy to our grandkids - but this legacy is ultimately about them being unwilling to compromise historically low tax rates.
If Romney is going to be part of an agenda that says all you people who are too poor to pay taxes now - you need to pay you share - it’s a necesary sacrifice because we’re going broke as a country. And you need to make more sacrifices - to have your schools shut down and your police laid off - because everyone needs to do their share of the sacrifice in these troubled times… and that we can’t possibly tax the job creators anymore, because they’re already past the breaking point… and then they find out that his part of the shared sacrifice is 15% whole percent of his huge income, they’ll realize it’s a sick fucking joke. And justifiably so.
This isn’t one of those “yeah so what, he smoked dope in college” type “doesn’t really matter, just a stupid election news thing blown up by the 24 hour news cycle” type of irrelevant stories. This is at the very heart of the policy they’re trying to inflict upon the American people. How you can possibly see criticism of this as irrelevant or illegitimate is quite baffling to me, except a knee jerk indoctrination to never question any policy that favors the people that truly run the republican party.
GeeDubya has that homey Texas thing going on, being a good ol’ boy, and all that. Working on that ranch, been in his family for weeks, clearing brush outside of Waco. Got so you couldn’t buy brush anywhere in McLennan County, brush was so scarce. My man GeeDubya was a brush-clearing mother…(Ya’ll hush up!)…But I’m talking about GeeDubya!..
You’re right. I should have said that his position on the tax code is what should be important. Oh, wait. I did.
As it is, all he did that was “bad” was pay the taxes he owed.
Martin: If you think taxes on the wealthy isn’t going to be an issue in this campaign in a way that it hasn’t been for some time, then I’d say it’s your opinion that is the naive one.
Do you disagree that he uses the rhetoric that the rich are overtaxed? Do you not think that he himself serving as a prime example of that not being true is relevant to his position on the issue?
I don’t disagree that Mitt Romney’s opinion on taxes aren’t a “so what he smoked dope in college” thing. But what I’m saying is, his tax returns aren’t going to be what determines how people vote on that issue. Some people are going to support Republican tax policy, some people aren’t. Period. The way they make that decision will almost certainly have nothing to do with the personal income tax percentage paid by Mitt Romney in FY 2011.
Taxes have been an issue in every election in my lifetime, and to a degree the share of taxes paid by the wealthy versus the poor and middle class has always factored in. Is it likely to be a bigger factor this time? Sure. But probably not as big a factor as the job market is on Nov. 2012.
Simple observers of politics like narratives and they like “politics as a basketball game”, narratives tell a story of the rise and fall of a candidate, and looking at political campaigns as basketball games you can pretend that particular points made, fouls committed, shots missed, culminate in a “score” that produce a winner and a loser.
I don’t think that is how elections work because I don’t think that is how voters work. David Brooks wrote an excellent article some years ago for the New York Times, in which he said:
There is even evidence that you can make a reasonable prediction about how people will vote based on the facial expressions of the candidates.
No, in America we let everyone vote. What that means is mostly idiotic non-issues will determine who wins and who loses. That would put Romney’s tax rate at least in the running, being both idiotic and a non-issue. But it will probably pale in comparison to whether granny thinks he looks like an upstanding citizen or a used car salesman, and whether Fred thinks Obama sounds inspiring or patronizing.
Aside from certain massive and scandalous things which can totally torpedo an election, it’s rarely the case that random facts about a candidate that come out almost a year prior to the election are going to be important enough in the minds of addled voters to actually influence who they vote for–and of course some huge portion won’t vote for a party different than the last one they voted for, and really aren’t in play at all.
His positions don’t really line up with that. He isn’t in favor of reduced marginal income tax rates on top earners, he’s in favor of maintaining the current tax brackets and eliminating the estate tax as well as eliminating the capital gains tax on dividends and interest for persons making less than $200,000 a year.
Honestly, his positions regarding this are not unreasonable when compared to a lot of conservatives (I’d do it differently, but I’m more moderate - perhaps even a liberal) - its one of the reasons he’s suspected of being a RINO and the “Anybody but Mitt” ticket has been so much fun to watch. However, he is going to have to do quite a dance to avoid getting painted by the brush being waved around by the party.
Clearly nothing is dispositive, but there are two factors being discounted.
First, the galvanization of a human face to a currently debated topic. Whether it’s a groundswell of grass-roots activism or Democratic machine astroturfing, if his tax situation matches what has a generally negative connotation at the moment, it’s the mythical undecideds that will be moved.
Again, this has nothing to do with rich or whether he pays what he owes. It’s that right now, thanks in large part to Occupy Wall Street’s effect on shifting the conversation, low taxes on investment (or non-labour) income is a hot-button issue. Had he been in manufacturing or other situation, this would not be a significant negative to his chances of election (as opposed to how you or I personally feel about the policy).
Second, you haven’t addressed (I don’t think) the massive enthusiasm gap that this could lead to. Romney is already going in with grudging support of his party. He will be the nominee, but barring a Palin-like entrance of a firestarter, his phone banks will not be as full as McCain’s were in 08. There are other factors (positive and negative), but he is going in with a slight uphill climb to get the vote out.
The tax returns–and what they represent–could spur enough people to get involved in the summer relatively early in the election.
Romney also said he “had a little speaking income” which turns out to be more than $300k. That’s a little out of touch if you’re “speaking income” is greater than what most Americans can ever hope to hit in their best year.