Mitt Romney got himself secretly recorded at a Boca Raton fund raiser earlier this year. A clip of that recording was released by Mother Jones magazine and is available on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvqHERTcytI
The text: Question from unseen person - For the past three years all everybody's been told is "Don't worry, we will take care of you". How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections to convince everybody, you have got to take care of yourself?
Mitt's response - There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That, that's 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, 4... 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 will 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 will never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10% 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.
what eye thynk: This pretty much speaks for itself; but I do want to point out that, while his percentage is technically correct, he failed to say that the 47% includes retirees, students, the unemployed, those on disability and the many people who work but at very low paying jobs and that most of them did pay some form of payroll tax.
The true numbers...
1. In 2011, 46.4% of Americans paid no federal income taxes.
2. However, 28.3% did pay some form of payroll tax such as social security
taxes or state and local income taxes.
3. Which leaves only 18.1% who paid no taxes at all. This percentage includes
many elderly and those citizens working at jobs that pay less than $20,000 a
year.
I have no doubt that every one of those working Americans making $20,000 a year would jump at the chance to move into a middle class job--you know, one of those $250,000 middle class jobs Mr. Romney talks about.
At 10:00 last night, Romney called a quick press conference to try to stop the damage to his campaign. He tried to explain that his message, whether public or private, is the same, saying that his words recorded in Boca Raton were not "elegantly stated".
Mitt, whether your words are dressed in diamonds or in mufti, they come down to the same thing--you are a smug elitist who holds a large number of American citizens in contempt. You seem unable to accept the fact that the President of the United States represents and protects all the people--you don't get to pick and choose those you feel are worthy.
Jim Messina, manager of President Obama's campaign, said in a statement that someone "who demonstrates such disgust and disdain for half of our fellow Americans" does not deserve to be president.
Amen.
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