In a statement released by Reid’s office, he accuses Romney’s
accountants of manipulating the Republican presidential candidate’s
returns:
The information released today reveals that Mitt Romney
manipulated one of the only two years of tax returns he’s seen fit to
show the American people – and then only to ‘conform’ with his public
statements. That raises the question: what else in those returns has
Romney manipulated? We already know Romney has money in tax havens in
Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. What we don’t know is why
he refuses to be straight with the American people about the choices
he’s made in his financial life. When will the American people see the
returns he filed before he was running for president? Governor Romney is
showing us what he does when the public is looking. The true test of
his character would be to show what he did when everyone was not looking
at his taxes.
“It’s also galling to see the creative accounting Mitt Romney applied
to his own tax returns only days after learning of his insulting
comments that seniors, soldiers and hard-working parents don’t pay
enough taxes,” Reid said in the statement. “Once again, we see Mitt
Romney is out of touch with middle class families, who don’t have the
luxury of accounting wizards and foreign tax shelters. It’s obvious he
believes in two sets of rules: one for him, and one for the middle
class.”
Reid goes on to warns, “despite the fiscal cliff looming in just over
three months,” Romney still refuses to release details of his returns.
The narrative of the Romney campaign as portrayed by most major media
last week has been one of a tone-deaf, elitist candidate. In a
presidential race as tight as this one -- the Gallup daily tracking poll
Thursday showed the candidates tied at 47 percent -- the media
potentially can tip the balance for or against a candidate in a decisive
way.
Most outlets ran with the stories suggesting Romney was
describing 47 percent of American voters as government-dependent
slackers who pay no taxes. In fact, Romney suggested nothing of the
sort. The videotape of Romney's remarks received publicity after James
Earl Carter IV -- grandson of former president Jimmy Carter -- promoted
the tape through the left-wing magazine Mother Jones. It turns out, the
version of the tape available via Mother Jones was edited, with
important sections left out.
But even the edited version didn't
justify the media feeding frenzy it provoked. Romney did not say 47
percent of Americans were freeloaders. What he did say was: "There are
47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter
what." His words were simply a statement of fact. The electorate is
polarized, with each party winning the loyal support of nearly half of
the voters.
But the most controversial parts of his comments had
to do with who makes up the 47 percent who are unconditionally in
Obama's camp. It's important to note the context in which the statements
were made. Romney was answering a direct question, which asked: "For
the last three years, all everybody's been told is, 'Don't worry, we'll
take care of you.' How are you going to do it, in two months before the
elections, to convince everybody you've got to take care of yourself?"
His
reply listed among the 47 percent who won't vote for him those "who are
dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who
believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who
believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to
you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give
it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what."
But
Democrats have been encouraging Americans to believe just that since
the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. And President Obama reiterates it
every time he has the chance. So why is Romney's repeating the
Democratic mantra controversial? Isn't it logical to assume that those
who support President Obama agree with him about the role of government
in providing health care, housing, food stamps -- you name it?
Romney has said his statement could have been made more elegantly.
But inelegant or not, he was right; we are becoming a nation of people
who depend on government. Nearly half of Americans pay no income tax --
Romney suggested it was 47 percent, coincidentally the same percentage
that support Obama. But even though many of these people contribute
payroll taxes, income taxes are what pay for government spending outside
Social Security and Medicare.
All Americans share the benefits
of national security and other necessary government programs, but nearly
half of them contribute little or nothing to pay for those programs.
Democrats believe this is as it should be -- we should just tax the rich
more. But what does it say about a nation when half its population
contributes so little to the protection and services they enjoy?
Of
course not all those dependent on government subsidies are Democrats or
Obama supporters. Seniors make up the biggest share of dependents. Most
seniors feel that they've "earned" their Social Security checks and
Medicare benefits. In fact, the majority of recipients will receive
substantially more in benefits over their lifetimes than they
contributed.
But Romney's larger point was that it's harder for
candidates who want to talk about personal responsibility and smaller
government to make headway when an increasing share of the population
become recipients of government largesse. And it's harder still when the
media distort what the candidates actually say and the context in which
they say it. Romney summed up his answer by saying, "what I have to do
is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center ... " He wasn't writing
off half the country but outlining a strategy to win the election.
The
media's attempt to twist Romney's statement moves them from being
journalists to partisans. And in an election this close, media bias just
could be the deciding factor.
While the much of the political media is busy parsing the statements made by Mitt Romney
four months ago at a closed-door fundraiser and engaging in a bit of
amateur psychoanalysis in order to divine the GOP nominee’s true
feelings towards Americans who pay no income tax, the actually President
of the United States dismissed another large group of voters in a
similarly brazen way. While appearing on a late night talk show,
President Barack Obama displayed a contemptuous lack of
concern for the significant number of Americans who care about runaway
federal spending by saying that he was simply unaware of the record
amount of federal debt. During the president’s appearance on CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman
on Tuesday night, Obama was asked about the debt clock prominently
featured at the Republican National Convention. America’s national debt
exceeded $16 trillion that week – more than the nation’s GDP. Letterman asked if Obama knew the nation’s debt. “I don’t remember what the number was precisely,” Obama replied. To be the president, one must retain quite a lot of information. It’s
a stretch, however, to believe that Obama is unaware of a figure that
features prominently in Republican messaging and is the primary reason
why Moody’s credit rating agency is likely to issue a U.S. credit downgrade in the near future. For all the media’s apoplectic garment rending in the the last three
weeks over one or another supposed gaffe or misstatement from Mitt
Romney, only the Washington Posts’ media critic Erik Wemple seems to think that this is a rather glaring dismissal of a chief concern for many America’s voters. President Obama promised to address the nation’s debt during his 2008
campaign. He lobbied for a line-item veto in the last election cycle – a
power the Republican House granted him in February, 2012, but stalled in the Democratic Senate. Just after taking office, in February 2009, the president promised to cut “the deficit we inherited by half.”
It has remained static over the course of his term at $1.3 trillion.
The debt has grown from $10.6 trillion in 2009 to more than $16 trillion
in Obama’s first term. Those that dismiss these broken promises as distractions from the
real issues Americans care about are not reading the polls. Debt and
deficit consistently rank among Americans’ top concerns, just behind the issues of unemployment and the state of the economy (which many polls lump together as linked issues). What’s more, the president clearly avoided saying how much debt
America is saddled with because it is among his biggest weaknesses.
Voters’ area aware he increased the debt greatly, as show in the results
of the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
This survey asked what their biggest concerns were about the president
and the number one issue was that he has “significantly increased
federal spending.” 29 percent of all voters said as much, including 44
percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats agreed. Those numbers
outpace Romney’s most troubling issue: contraception and abortion
rights. Only 22 percent of all voters said Romney’s positions on those
issues was a matter of concern for them. A watchdog media would not let the president get away with this
moment of selective amnesia. Call me an optimist, but I am holding out
hope that the political press will step up and highlight this moment of
conspicuous dereliction.
A newly released audio recording purports to feature a young Barack Obama saying he believes in government "redistribution" -- a comment that Mitt Romney quickly seized on to claim his opponent thinks "the government should take from some to give to the others."
The tape, posted on YouTube, was a throwback to the web video that emerged in 2008 showing Obama telling "Joe the Plumber" he wants to "spread the wealth around."
This recording purportedly was from a 1998 conference at Loyola University. In it, the young Obama tells the audience he believes there has been "a propaganda campaign against the possibility of government action and its efficacy."
"I think that what we're going to have to do is somehow resuscitate the notion that government action can be effective at all," Obama says. "I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution -- because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot."
The broader context of the talk is unclear. But Romney, who on Tuesday faced criticism about some of his own comments in a secretly recorded video, pointed to the Obama recording in arguing that he and his opponent have sharply different views on government.
Romney said there's a "great divide" in the country.
"I know some believe the government should take from some to give to the others," he told Fox News. "I think the president makes it clear in the tape that was released today that that's what he believes. I think that's an entirely foreign concept."
Romney, for his part, has endured a wave of criticism from Democrats over a video showing him speaking at a private fundraiser back in May. In the video, Romney could be heard saying the 47 percent of people who don't pay federal income tax "believe they are victims" and will support Obama "no matter what."
Romney defended his comments in the interview with Fox News on Tuesday -- and then cited the Obama recording to underscore his point that he and the president come at the job with two entirely different philosophies.
"Frankly, we have two very different views about America," Romney said. "The president's view is one of a larger government. There's a tape that just came out today (with) the president saying he likes redistribution. I disagree.
Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham appeared on Fox & Friends on Tuesday where she went off on a recently released hidden camera tape of Mitt Romney
at a closed door fundraiser telling his donors that 47 percent of the
electorate is unavailable to him because they are dependent on
government and loyal to President Barack Obama.
Ingraham became animated in a discussion about the tape, and said that
it was “ridiculous” that it was getting as much airtime as it was, even
on Fox News. After Brian Kilmeade played a portion of the clip to Ingraham, Steve Doocy asked, “So, what did he say that’s wrong?” “The percentage might be off by one or two percentage points
depending on how you formulate it,” Ingraham replied. “The bottom line
is Mitt Romney speaking at a fundraiser about the challenges a
Republican faces in this presidential race – not all that unlike what
political pundits, many of them hyperventilating today, have said. That
there is a small slice of the electorate that is undecided. That’s
basically what he said there.” “The idea that you’re declaring, ‘Well, the race is over. Mitt Romney
doesn’t care about people,’” Ingraham continued. “Meanwhile, you have a
president whose policies have undermined the 47 percent.” Ingraham slammed the media for glossing over President Obama’s fundraising and campaigning schedule which includes stops with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Rachael Ray and not having a problem with it. “The policies of this president have hurt the 47 percent,” Ingraham said. Gretchen Carlson
said that it was not Romney’s math but his quote, “I don’t have to
worry about those people,” that is going to become a persistent problem
for him. Ingraham replied that Romney had to push forward with his insistence
that his policies will lift all boats. She conceded that the Obama
campaign and the press would use that line against Romney, but he could
overcome it by insisting that his plan would raise people out of the 47
percent. “You seem very fired up today,” Carlson noticed. “I am,” Ingraham replied. “I’m very pumped up about this. I think
it’s ridiculous that people are seizing on it and that we’re even giving
all that much airtime to it, frankly” Ingraham went on to say that she warned that if Romney did not come
out of the conventions with a lead, he would be subject to attacks on
his wealth and outlook.
Student of Life, lover of God, Black, Democrat conservative, believer in self-responsibility, traditional values and morals, resident of Brooklyn, New York. Follow me on Twitter at @MrGreyGhost1.
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