Oh dear. Mitt Romney said something that Democrats in the media don’t like.
In one clip, Mr. Romney describes how his campaign would not try to appeal to “47 percent of the people” who will vote for Mr. Obama “no matter what.” They are, he says, “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”
He says those people “pay no income tax,” and “so our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.” Mr. Romney adds: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
The clips are said to be from a May 17 fundraiser.
Two weeks prior to that, the American public met “Julia,” the Obama campaign’s mascot for depending on government from cradle to grave. Julia is shown from age three to age 65, always dependent on Barack Obama, who appears to have been in office for her entire life. Though she has a child, she never has a husband. Who needs one of those when Barack is looking out for her?
The theme of the entire slide set is that you can depend on the benevolent reign of Barack Obama.
Obama’s benevolent and glorious reign has also brought about an extraordinary transformation: 47 million Americans now live in poverty, and food stamp usage has gone up dramatically. In June 2012, food stamp usage went up three times faster than job growth. The Obama administration has advertised food stamps to Americans who have jobs and own their own homes and cars. It has suggested that Americans throw parties to convince their friends to get on food stamps. Presumably the food bill for the parties would come out of people’s food stamp budgets. The Obama administration has also gutted the bipartisan 1996 Welfare Reform Act, allowing states to drop the law’s work requirement.
Now the president’s supporters in the media are howling that Romney’s mention of dependency government is a problem for his candidacy?
Dependency is obviously a problem for a candidate who is promoting individual freedom. It’s a greater problem for the future of our country.
But Julia doesn’t care. Julia loves her president.
Also read: How Mitt Romney Should Handle the ’47%’ Remark
The “democrats” said that we all BELONG to the Government, didn’t they ?
We don’t. Good for Romney to remember that.
Sigh…we don’t belong to the government, we *are* the government. That’s the whole point of this country.
The right-wing campaign to demonize “government” is a poisonous, radical fallacy. It’s been very effective as propaganda, but what are the results?
A broken polity, where business and wealth call all the shots, while howling absurd crocodile tears about the mean old tyrannical government…that they already subjugated a generation ago. While the average person is stuck in debt and wage slavery, working like hell and being shat on for it, denounced for laziness by “conservatives.”
Both Roosevelts are spinning in their graves.
Having worked for a State Government for 18 mos and the Federal Government for 24 years … I am no longer the Government. During my years … the Vocational Rehabilitation Dept. rewarded their top agent … who Rehabilitated a candidate to “selling balloons at a mid-sized cities football games.” When I was invited to participate in a Government sponsored Rehab masters program, I couldn’t see it as a wise expenditure of tax moneys. From there I joined a federal agency. While I was from the Government, there to help and wanted to help … it proved nearly impossible and often punishing.
Today, I avoid government interventions, government workers and government programs to the extent I can.
I am employed in the private sector and will continue as long as I’m physically able. Shades of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 29 (?) Tons. Supporting myself and Federal/State and local governments, in addition to myself, proves a heavy burden.
The song was 16 tons – quite apropos
Or try the Rainmakers with “government cheese”
We do NOT belong to the government. The government belongs to us (we the people).
Democrats do not understand this simple fact.
We need effective / efficient government that does not use our tax dollars to reward only certain segments of society – rich or poor
Who cares about the Roosevelts?
The average person is in wage and debt slavery because of policies like those advocated by Obama. The difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals believe governments role is to provide for and protect them from cradle to grave while conservatives believe governments role is to protect our rights, freedom, and opportunity. No ones arguing for no government or that government is evil. Their arguing about the size
and scope of government. To simply disregard this as propaganda in the face of trillions of dollars of debt and numerous historical examples of what happens when government overreaches seems foolish at best and possibly much worse.
Look on the bright side: when inflation takes off and we all make at least $1 million a year (to pay for a loaf of bread that costs $5,000), our personal debts and the national debt will be quite manageable….in fact, Ameritopia will be in full bloom and there will be no more rich and poor, as we will all be poor. But at least that will be the essence of “fairness.”
Sorry, A; that smoke rising from their graves is not produced by the friction of their spinning corpses.
A progressive and a socialist? This is supposed to bother me?
We are continually raising the standards of what is considered a minimal standard of living. Color TV, microwave ovens, central air, cars, computers, call phones, internet, medical advances beyond imagining…..
While the US has the highest corporate tax in the West.
Wealth? Obama is wealthy. Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Michael Moore, Harry Reid; these are the useless rich.
The left doesn’t just refuse to process facts, they refuse to acknowledge their existence.
Julia possesses a prehensile organ with which she reaches into other peoples’ lives to take what she needs. It’s called Government.
…”prehensile organ”…eewww. Like Julia’s been taken over by this prehensile organ that slithered into an ear, or delved into the back of her head, by an alien, sorta like Agent Jones.
What Romney said was both true and untrue.
It is true, if you lump all those folks together and assume them to be one big demographic.
It is false that you cannot reach them.
Most importantly, we cannot solve the problems, if we cannot get a bunch of such people on board with the solutions.
Romney is a corporate, numbers-oriented guy. However, it is wrong to reduce people to numbers. That is the game of political operatives, but it is not the role of a leader or a reformer.
Someone like Santorum would never have said this. He speaks from the heart, not the numbers.
Reducing people to mere numbers is dangerous.
Santorum is a sanctimoniuos twit who has voted big government thru out his failed legislative career.
In other words, he is a social conservative, like our founders.
I don’t believe Romney was reducing this to numbers but making a larger point. The media is spinning this is that he is saying all people not paying taxes are lazy freeloaders. Is larger point was actually that their is a certain % of people that are committed to and believe in the government taking care of them from cradle to grave. These are people that will never vote for Romney. I believe this to be true. Obama has purposely adding to the number of people that are dependent on government. Democrats have always done this to create a permanent group of loyal democrats. Obama has taken this to a new level, advertising for people to be on food stamps, etc. This is romneys point and if expressed properly is a winning one.
Santorum absolutely would have said something like that, if he was at a donors meeting and had just been asked what demographics he planned to win to get to 51%.
Democrats in the media? Would this include Bill Kristol and David Brooks? The most spectacular own goal since Ford said eastern Europe wasn’t dominated by the Soviet Union. But go right ahead guys defend him to the death. Of course when he loses as he surely will then you’ll turn on him as a lousy candidate. The far right gets more Stalinist by the day.
You’ve got your Stalinists wrong; LBJ wanted to be Stalin, and Bill Clinton thought he actually was (although it remains unclear whether Stalin ever felt anyone else’s pain). Hillary may yet turn out to BE Stalin.
Check out KIMBY on Amazon for Kindle, and read a bit about the story from both sides of the fence.
Amazing claims about the “far right”. Stalin was an authoritarian, government central planning collectivist, who enouraged a culture of adoration of himself and murdered of anyone operating an independent business – Kulaks by the millions. So, you belileve conservatives want to use the government to take people’s property, kill their businesses (as well as the people themselves), outlaw self reliance, centralize all power in the governement, have a leader who is “The One”,… Hyperbole only works when, on an outlandish scale, it is believable. This hyperbole is useful for highlighting the potential of the liberal collectivist.
Romney was great on Cavuto. Finally he is fighting the battle we want him to fight. David Brooks (just like Joe Scarborough) are not Republicans. Bill Kristol needs to get a backbone. Every time it gets tough he runs. We need guys like him to fight against the liberal media.
You are quite right Brooks is a faux conservative who champions liberal politics to prove himself to be an enlightened conservative who “gets it” and makes him marketable in the MSM. Kristol I have never understood, he seems jingoist on the one hand and chicken shite on the domestic other. I have stopped watching Fox News Sunday because I’m sick of Kristol and Hume finding persnickity pimples on Romney and Republicans. I am sick of these chicken shite Republican pundits who seema afraid of their shadows. These people cry out for Reagan yet act out like a Dole or Ford. If we can’t make the argument for Conservatism in todays political and economical climate then conservatism will loose this round. It may have to wait and rise again with the Tea party
patriots.
Why yes how dare every Republican pundit not tow the line of the most extreme end of the party. *Eye roll* Y’all might think you want this debate, but as a Democrat I say bring it on.
Who knew when Biden was mugging “gonna put ya’ll back in chains” that he was talking about the Federal government? I think Biden knew.
Great! So glad this happened, now we can drop talking about Obamas economy and talk about the real issues……………………….??
Romney/Ryan…. TO SAVE AMERICA
I agree with the comment that “we are the government.” It is too easy to say that “the government is them over there.” But it is easy to forget that not
only is the government “them over there,” but we must remember that “them is us.”
The Wrong-Wing Teapublican Party wants all your tax money and mine to go to just them, and their wrong-wing (morally wrong, that is) rip-offican political donors. They claim that hard-working average American workers don’t contributeto this nation, and only take from everyone else.
I say that, if it weren’t for the work by those average American workers and the things they go without just so they can, by their work, enrich those in the upper income and wealthy classes, there would be NO upper classes and wealthy to rip anyone off. Thus it is that the upper income groups and weatlhy corporate owners who want to take away from the government that the working poor and everyone else contribute to, are the ones who are ON WELFARE. The pay stubs of every worker in America show federal taxes withheld. They might get some of it back in a rebate check at the end of the year, but THEY DO PAY, AND
THEY PAY A MUCH BIGGER PERCENTAGE OF THEIR WAGES THAN DO THE WEALTHY WHO TAKE THEIR REBATE CHECK IN THE FORM OF TAX WRITE-OFFS AND LOOPHOLES THAT OFTEN MEAN THEY PAY NOTHING IN TAXES. So, Teapublicans, eat them apples!
“The Wrong-Wing Teapublican Party…” Wow, but you have a way with words! Brilliant, brilliant stuff.
Did I forget the /sarc tag?
If you give an honest listen to Paul Ryan explaining his budget proposal, you will see that two of his goals are:
1) to simplify the tax code [thus the little guy will actually be able to understand how it works]
2) to close the loopholes you mention [thus it's harder for the big guys to take advantage of it]
Have any Democrats come forward with a serious proposal like this?
Ron Truth’s response is fantabulous, ridiculous, and superflous!
His prose extraneous, spontaneous, and heinous!
And when he gets done writing his Seussian dreck!
He will patiently wait for his government check!
Yes, and we would be riding horses on dirt roads.
Food Stamp enrollment went up dramatically because Obama dramatically increased the availability of them. And believe it or not, you can’t by a cadillac or an Iphone, or even alcohol with food stamps. You can buy food. And anyone who has ever actually bought food with them knows there is nothing but shame in having to use them, so the only people who do would actually physically starve if they did not. Believe it or not, if you were without food for long enough and had zero other options too, you’d be a welfare queen lickety split. Don’t doubt it for a second. It can happen to anyone.
Romney’s declaration that 47% of the US public are parasites would indeed be disastrous…if Romney were running as a Democrat.
I for one am glad to hear Romney speak the truth about the dependent classes in the US; if Romney had apologized for speaking that truth, I would have stopped actively supporting him.
Romney’s statement was not thougtht out clearly, and is not polically correct. it oversimlpies the situation, but he is basically right on target — even obama and julia realize this. democrats expand entitlements and dependency while honest repubs would like more people to pay taxes and work. romney is right on this issue, even if some of his nuances are incorrect and even if it shock the libs and the msm.
I’m Julia, latina, small business owner and independent. I support Rommey.
Mittens makes yet another rookie mistake. No matter what version of the Ayn Rand fantasy that Romney’s supporters are clinging to, most folks (almost half the country, according to Mitt-Happens) don’t think of themselves as government moochers.
But hey, Willard, have it your way. Have this “great debate” with yourself. Tell all the old folks down in Florida that they’re dependent because they’re on Social Security. Tell someone who got laid off from their job in Texas that they’re losers because they’re collecting Unemployment Insurance.
Please, please, please, keep talking, Mittens. Every time you open your mouth, Obama rises two points in the polls. Thanks, Mitty!
But they are.
Rs have spent years cutting income taxes and increasing things like the Child Tax Credit. This means fewer people pay income taxes.
So whenever you hear a stat like “47% don’t pay income taxes,” remember: Reagan and Bush helped build that.
These tax cuts for the poor were partly in order to make further tax cuts for the rich political palatable.
But now that fewer people pay income taxes as a result of GOP policies, they’re being called lazy and dependent.
And thus the GOP’s tax cuts are being used to make a case that the rich are overtaxed and that the less-rich are becoming dependent.
Which thus leads to a policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich and cuts to social services for the non-rich.
Also worth noting: the poor often pay higher state tax rates than the rich.
Add in payroll taxes and excise taxes, instead of cherry picking only a single tax, and it turns out that the poor and the working class end up paying a fair chunk of their income in taxes.
“…whenever you hear a stat like “47% don’t pay income taxes,” remember: Reagan and Bush helped build that.”
Sad, but true. In their zeal to cut taxes for EVERYONE (not just the “rich”), Republicans have helped create the non income taxpaying but benefit receiving constituency that is the base of the Democrat special interest coalition. Not only that, but the welfare state is funded primarily by money from the natural base of Republicans—those who work, pay taxes of all sorts, and do not rely on government to meet all their needs and wants.
The poor may pay higher tax RATES than the “rich”, but the rich and middle class pay FAR more tax DOLLARS than the poor do. EVERYONE should pay taxes that are NECESSARY to build the roads, bridges, schools, etc that make prosperity in the U.S. “possible”. Otherwise non INCOME tax payers have no skin in the game and can’t take pride when Obama says “you built that.”
I have a nephew that managed to put the whole thing in perspective for me. He was complaining about oil company subsidies and them not paying their “fair share”. I told him that oil companies don’t get anything that any other business get. They get to deduct the cost of producing income before the income is taxed. To which he told me that he considers any deduction from income as a subsidy. Leaving the fact of him taking exemptions for his two boys aside, I spelled out to him that my attitude is that my paycheck belongs to me and I pay a portion of it to the government for the common good. And his attitude is that my paycheck belongs to the government and they allow me to keep what ever portion they think I need. His response was “that’s right”.
Can’t win with people that think like that.
Yes, I had caught that right away. Julia is the heroine in 1984.
The importance of Julia cannot be overemphasized. Julia is free to live as she chooses because Big Daddy in Washington will take care of her. In particular she doesn’t need a man, not a husband and not a father (or a mother). Obama will put her through school, Obama will relieve her of her student loans if she can’t pay them off, Obama will get her birth control pills, Obama will take care of her baby, Obama will kill her baby if she wants, Obama will get her a zero down payment mortgage, Obama will make the men in her life do what she wants, he will make them support her and her baby, he will punish them if she decides after the fact that it was a mistake to screw around with them, Obama will get her health insurance, Obama will take care of her parents so that she doesn’t have to.
Julia does not have to grow up. Her boyfriends don’t have to grow up either. We are becoming a people trapped in perpetual adolescence. The consequence is that – at a minimum – we will no longer be a free people.
Incredibly succinct.
But worry not Charles, the dog of Darwin will have his day. The ease of adolescence will turn to toil just to keep body and soul together. The course our leaders have wrought hits the rocks soon. The psychologicaly lame will self distruct rapidly, even IF the power stays on.