For my first post I want to discuss the big news that is being discussed at this time. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president of the 2012 election is being hit with controversy for saying the following statement, "There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing." This is in reference to 47% of Americans who currently do not pay income taxes. There is much to be upset about in this quote. There is hypocrisy contained within it as well. Mitt Romney is speaking about how there are 47% of Americans who do not pay income taxes.
Let's start by discussing why 47% of Americans not paying income taxes isn't as bad as it sounds. While these people may not pay income taxes, because they don't make enough money, they still pay sales taxes and payroll taxes. If you read this article on CNN from several months ago, you can see that once you take into account payroll taxes, the number drops precipitously to 18%. This is because many of the people in this 47% work, but do not make enough money to qualify for paying income tax. The article continues to say that once sales taxes are taken into account, almost no households in America pay no taxes. I feel it should also be stated that when you're making a very small amount of income, a 10% sales tax on the things you buy ends up being a very large portion of your income. I cannot find the source at the time of writing this post, but I believe it was calculated that payroll and sales tax ends up being about 15% of a family in poverty's income.
With that having been said, we can now move on to my claim of hypocrisy. Mitt Romney is on tape as having said that he has paid as low as 13% in taxes in the one year that he is willing to release his tax information. This is lower than the above stated 15%. Not to mention that he continues to refuse to release his tax information for the past decade and as a result is allowed to say anything he wants about his past taxes. Of course this is all speculation, but some do believe that he may have paid zero taxes in some years which is why he will not release the information. It is not for me to say whether or not Mitt Romney has paid no taxes or not, but for someone who pays such a small percentage of his income in taxes, especially when his income is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, it is hypocritical to say that people who do not pay income taxes are victims and feel entitled to government help. It is a disgusting thing to say and shows a lack of compassion for other people and the bad hand that some people are dealt in their life. Compassion may not be a requirement to run for president, but maybe it should be.
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