The 47% 120919

The 47%

How quickly things can change, especially during campaign season!  We all thought this presidential election would be about “the one percent.”  This of course refers to the top 1 percent of income earners in America who have the audacity to succeed, and then only contribute 37% of all federal income taxes paid in this nation.

            What a difference a day makes.  On Tuesday, September 18, we all became aware of comments made by Governor Mitt Romney at a fundraiser a few months ago.  The comments were recorded and recently released.  Governor Romney’s comments can be summarized as follows: Approximately 47% of Americans don’t pay taxes, view themselves as victims, believe the government owes them something, and will vote for President Obama no matter what Mitt Romney says or does.

            As is so often the case in modern day sound bite politics, Romney’s point has been completely lost because of the way he said it.  By his own admission, his comments were “not elegantly stated.”  But . . . his essential point is correct.

            Those in the lowest ½ of income earners pay virtually no federal income taxes.  That means that a large percentage of people that go to the polls every other year have no incentive to control the cost of government.  Instead, many of them have a vested interest in more and more federal government spending, regardless of the damage to the economy and the unfairness to those individuals that pay government’s bills.

            Various political philosophers and commentators have pointed out that democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.  Governor Romney was simply pointing out that given the number of people currently receiving the largesse, America is perilously close to the tipping point.  Hopefully he will discover how to state it “elegantly” over the next seven weeks.  If not, we are in big trouble.