Willard M. Romney - 15%

[RunInRed 16,991]

Romney explains his effective tax rate:

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney said. “Because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/romney-says-his-effective-tax-rate-is-about-15-percent/

Oh, and those speaker fees that are 'not very much': $362,000

Class Warfare! Class Warfare! Yeah, yeah, I know.

Seriously though, is Obama the luckiest candidate alive or what ... think about it, the GOP and Co. has just walked right into the Democratic economic platform/message for 2012.

Carry on.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Seriously though, is Obama the luckiest candidate alive or what ... think about it, the GOP and Co. has just walked right into the Democratic economic platform/message for 2012.

That would be don't work and expect the government to provide for you?

Be jealous of those who have because of hard work and saving?

[Justin5 20]

I dont get the 'spread the wealth' meme from the other side. I mean isnt every tax a way to spread the wealth? And if you dont support any tax - how can you support basic things such as the military, roads, schools, etc?

[arnaldoabru 11]

Romney is a member of the lucky sperm club, who made a fortune firing people or sending those jobs overseas.

[Tigermike 3,425]

I dont get the 'spread the wealth' meme from the other side. I mean isnt every tax a way to spread the wealth? And if you dont support any tax - how can you support basic things such as the military, roads, schools, etc?

What is the subject of almost every speech Obama gives? Taking from those who have and giving to those who don't. At his core he is a true believer of a redistribution of wealth.

Justin you are a smart guy, you can say you "dont get the 'spread the wealth' meme" but you know it's there.

You are not going to raise people out of poverty, out of a marginal existence by giving them all they need or want.

The democrats push toward a more socialistic society is gradual and taken in small steps. It's also done by not calling it socialism. Socialism hides in a fog of humanitarianism. There is probably nothing more beautiful than humanitarianism. There is no more ennobling and inspiring sentiment than the desire for the uplift of our fellowmen. To give them a helping hand up. Why not keep them in school? And it doesn't have to be college. How about jobs?

There is only one real solution and that is to motivate people to be self reliant. NOT to be looking for government to take care of them. People need to regain their faith in themselves, in freedom, in free markets, and God. They need to reject socialism and uproot the faith they have placed in the state and in coercion. And I don't think this president and the democrats are doing anyone a favor by pushing anything else.

[AUBURNJAC 53]

We as a country have caused most of our problems. We have been enabling people for 50 years now to hold that hand out and get a free check/housing/cell phone/healthcare. We have made mostly African Americans this way by allowing leaders and government to spread the news to them that they are oppressed and are owed something. Now, before you go and call me a racist, I am far from it. I believe in equality, I truly do. I just think that we have caused a social monster and it's up to America to fix it. The absolute WORSE thing you can do IMO is "spread the wealth". That is doing NOTHING more than enabling to the max. It is true that our ancestors (and not that many generations back) did in fact opress the black race and treated them as inferior. This country discriminated against them and treated them as "different". Now, in almost unbelievable contrast, we have made a whole socioeconomic class of them that do not know how to stand on their on two feet and do something for themselves. It's not their fault, this has been happening for several generations at this point.

The state of Florida is on the right track when they say "take a drug test before you get benefits". IMO, we need to spend money on education and job training. Think about this...... To get food stamps or wellfare you have to go through either government paid for job training or even college. You have 2-4 years to complete this and get a job and then you are DONE with government assistence unless you are phisically or mentally unable to work! What do you think would cost more, a couple of years of job training or a lifetime of wellfare and government assistence? This gives EVERYONE a chance to succeed. Eventually, everyone will be on board because those that don't do this will have NOTHING! Plus, it keeps classes of people. Some will have the brainpower, desire and work ethic to be doctors, lawyers, etc... Some will become farmers.... Some people only have enough God given intelligence to be a janitor or work at the recycling plant. Isn't this a way better way of living than forcing communism/socialism on the people?

[Tigermike 3,425]

Romney is a member of the lucky sperm club, who made a fortune firing people or sending those jobs overseas.

As usual you are happy spreading the lies.

[Grumps 3,706]

Wow! Another evil one-percenter who invests money so that others have a chance to achieve success. Let's punish him! It's a good thing Obama EARNED his wealth or else you would come across as a hypocrite.

[Tigermike 3,425]

JANUARY 13, 2012, 7:28 P.M. ET

The Truth About Bain and Jobs

Job creation and destruction are both relentless. The small difference between the two is what we call prosperity.

Mitt Romney and his GOP rivals are engaged in a fruitless argument in South Carolina over whether private equity creates more jobs than it destroys. The debate is fruitless because voters and politicians don't believe jobs should ever be destroyed.

The American voter is not about to become sophisticated about the place of private equity in American life. But the American voter can become inured to it. So let backers of Newt Gingrich's flaming candidacy run a "King of Bain" video savaging Mr. Romney's leveraged buyout career on South Carolina TV.

All such productions are but poor reprises of a story that appeared in this paper on May 16, 1990, written by a reporter named Susan Faludi, later to become famous as an angry feminist author.

In 7,770 words, Ms. Faludi described the buyout of the Safeway supermarket chain, and if anybody suffered a layoff or pay cut or got depressed and committed suicide, she did not hesitate to blame private equity. You would think that firing had been unknown in the economy until private equity invented it.

Most damning, she claimed Safeway was a profitable company when private equity went to work trying to make it more profitable. What neither she nor Safeway's investors could have known was that the fat in the supermarket industry would soon be the target of Wal-Mart, Costco and other revolutionary discounters, so competitive change was coming in any case. The lesson? When private-equity investors sniff a profit opportunity, they are probably just one step ahead of someone else.

As a rule, private equity takes on the most troubled companies because turning them around offers the biggest profit opportunities. That's why private equity tends to generate more than its share of traumatic headlines. Look no further than Ripplewood Holdings' decision to put the maker of Twinkies into bankruptcy this week. It's the kind of decision that, were Ripplewood's principals ever to run for office, would get them savaged in an ad.

But guess what? Ripplewood also bought the company, Hostess Brands, out of bankruptcy three years ago, when it was called Interstate Bakeries. Ripplewood is just the latest manager to wrestle unsuccessfully with the company's fundamental problem, a unionized workforce in an industry where competitors aren't unionized.

Next time you're choosing a fattening indulgence in the checkout line, ask yourself if you're willing to pay extra so Twinkies and Wonder Bread (made by the same company) can arrive at the store on different trucks? So the driver can be excused from helping to unload? So the company can pay workers-comp costs way out of line the industry's? So a company with just 19,000 employees can administer 40 different pension plans?

We didn't think so.

But the best antidote to foolish thinking about job creation is the work of economists Steven J. Davis and John Haltiwanger. Their painstaking research has revealed a side of America's dynamism that isn't always pretty. Between 1977 and 2005, years roughly overlapping Mr. Romney's business career, some 15% of all jobs were destroyed every year, even as total jobs grew by an average of 2% a year. Job creation and destruction are both relentless, the authors showed in paper after paper. The small difference between the two is what we call prosperity.

But now Republicans are worried. To fault Mr. Romney for being involved with businesses that both grew and shrank, that created jobs and destroyed them, may be to fault him for having eaten from the tree of knowledge in a way that, say, President Obama has not. But how will his story fare in November against Mr. Obama's simpler story, in which ravenous capitalists destroy jobs and government creates them with things like the Detroit/UAW bailout, solar subsidies and health-care mandates?

Mr. Romney would be a fool to believe a political campaign is the right place to explain the private-equity business. But he has a perfectly defensible story to tell.

First, the money: He expected to be paid well. But nobody—not even those whose billions earned in private equity make Mr. Romney's millions look paltry—envisioned the astounding rise in business values in the gilded '80s and '90s. When Mr. Romney was asked by his boss to start Bain Capital in 1983, the Dow was at 1086.50. When he left on Feb. 11, 1999 to run the Olympics, it was 9363.46. His is not the only recent fortune owed partly to this accident of timing (Warren Buffett's and many others come to mind). Indeed, if we're being honest, Mitt here is representative of a generation of professionals whose serendipity it was to have spent the 1970s on our education and then to be spit into the job market just as one of history's great economic liftoffs was taking place.

Second, the work: He put his talent for calm, careful analysis to work helping American businesses adapt to the onrushing challenges of globalization and technological change. Looking back, it may even be true that his ratio of jobs created to jobs destroyed was better than the economy's as a whole.

What does this have to do with the presidency? Perhaps not much, but one thing he didn't learn at Bain Capital was to twiddle his thumbs because taking action might make somebody mad at him. That's not the worst qualification to bring to the Oval Office right now.

link

[cptau 169]

Romney explains his effective tax rate:

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney said. “Because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/romney-says-his-effective-tax-rate-is-about-15-percent/

Oh, and those speaker fees that are 'not very much': $362,000

Class Warfare! Class Warfare! Yeah, yeah, I know.

Seriously though, is Obama the luckiest candidate alive or what ... think about it, the GOP and Co. has just walked right into the Democratic economic platform/message for 2012.

Carry on.

Everyone knew they guy was rich and has lots of investment income. Nothing new here. Ross Perot had the same situation.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1994/01/01/88600/index.htm

Unless Romney just make one paid speech, $362K is not much for speaking fees in a year. Clinton is paid millions to make speeches. Other politicians are also highly paid to do what they do best. Trump also makes a lot making speeches. After that sport figures and other entertainment types make up the rest of the top earners for speaking. Obama will never ever lack for cash once he is on the paid speaking circuit.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/06/0610_speakers/index_01.htm

[channonc 466]

RIR, so much for people sticking to the topic at hand. As people in Washington often say, "people don't vote based on the income level they are, they vote based on the income level they wish to become." That motto is illustrated by many in this thread.

For those of you non-millionaires who feel like the millionaires and billionaires need your help in lobbying on their behalf, feel free to carry on...

[Tigermike 3,425]

RIR, so much for people sticking to the topic at hand. As people in Washington often say, "people don't vote based on the income level they are, they vote based on the income level they wish to become." That motto is illustrated by many in this thread.

For those of you non-millionaires who feel like the millionaires and billionaires need your help in lobbying on their behalf, feel free to carry on...

So the world would be better if people had not ambition to do something with their lives. Damn no wonder the DNC trotted out the OWS crowd for their AstroTurf efforts.

[Tigermike 3,425]

Romney explains his effective tax rate:

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney said. “Because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/romney-says-his-effective-tax-rate-is-about-15-percent/

Oh, and those speaker fees that are 'not very much': $362,000

Class Warfare! Class Warfare! Yeah, yeah, I know.

Seriously though, is Obama the luckiest candidate alive or what ... think about it, the GOP and Co. has just walked right into the Democratic economic platform/message for 2012.

Carry on.

RIR, so much for people sticking to the topic at hand. As people in Washington often say, "people don't vote based on the income level they are, they vote based on the income level they wish to become." That motto is illustrated by many in this thread.

For those of you non-millionaires who feel like the millionaires and billionaires need your help in lobbying on their behalf, feel free to carry on...

So did Mitt Romney do anything wrong in filing his taxes? Did he file illegal returns? Or did he go by the guidelines enacted by congress and the IRS?

[AURaptor 1,137]

A complete non issue, how much Romney pays in taxes. It's legal, there's nothing which states he MUST reveal his tax returns, and he give far more to charity than Dems do.

Meanwhile, Barry and Michelle live like royalty, on the public dole, while telling the rest of America... " at some point, I think you've made enough money. "

[AUloggerhead 2,356]

RIR, so much for people sticking to the topic at hand. As people in Washington often say, "people don't vote based on the income level they are, they vote based on the income level they wish to become." That motto is illustrated by many in this thread.

For those of you non-millionaires who feel like the millionaires and billionaires need your help in lobbying on their behalf, feel free to carry on...

Speaking of the original post/topic -- what is it? To point out that Romney is wealthy and seeking public office? That's hardly unusual. Quite a few of those millionaire/billionaire "class" members are politicians: Lank1 Lank2

It's the nature of the beast to have wealthy people seek higher office in the US. I guess the real issue is to question if they have earned their money honestly or if they just inherited it a la Kennedy (pick any of them,) or married into it like John Kerry, or have enriched themselves while in office like the late Sen Robert Byrd or Nancy Peolsi, etc.

[Justin5 20]

George Harris, Look senior editor, said he had "badgered" the governor for his latest income tax form but Romney balked because "one year could be a flue, perhaps done for show..."

"Stumped by this argument, I was not prepared for the move that it eventually led him to make: He ordered up all the Form 1040s that he and Mrs. Romney had filed over the past 12 years—including those profitable ones when he saved the American Motors Corporation from bankruptcy and became a millionaire on the company's stock options."

Harris said the Romneys had given away 23 per cent of their income since 1955—$560,608.17 to the church and $115,205.90 in other tax-deductible contributions.

I only post this to show how great his dad was in this regard.

[autigeremt 6,970]

I don't see the IRS going after him like they did Mr. Geitner, and I don't have a problem what so ever with him making billions/millions as long as it was legal. THANK GOD WE LIVE IN A LAND THAT OFFERS THE CHANCE TO BE WEALTHY!!!!

[Justin5 20]

I dont care about his wealth. I care about his tax rate, which is laughably low.

[Grumps 3,706]

I dont care about his wealth. I care about his tax rate, which is laughably low.

Clearly they should change the tax laws so that Mitt Romney (and all other republicans) pay whatever tax rate Justin thinks is fair. Do we know what that percentage is?

[Justin5 20]

I dont care about his wealth. I care about his tax rate, which is laughably low.

Clearly they should change the tax laws so that Mitt Romney (and all other republicans) pay whatever tax rate Justin thinks is fair. Do we know what that percentage is?

90% on all new income over $1 million regardless of regular income or capital gains?

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

15% is a joke.

ETA: I kid. I dont want 90%. But I think 40% is more than fair. Thats Clinton era rates.

[RunInRed 16,991]

Point of this thread: Do you think it's right for a millionaire like Mitt Romney to pay a lower tax rate than you do?

[AURaptor 1,137]

Actually, it's not 15%. It's 15%+35%, or more. Romney's paying more like 50%. And he donated all the money earned from his book sales, a hell of a lot more $ than Obama ever has...or Kerry... who gave exactly nothing to charity, some years.

[Justin5 20]

Actually, it's not 15%. It's 15%+35%, or more. Romney's paying more like 50%.

Thats not how taxes work, so thats either incredibly dishonest or uninformed.

[jj3jordan 2,125]

Romney is a member of the lucky sperm club, who made a fortune firing people or sending those jobs overseas.

Nobody has fired more people and sent more jobs overseas than Immelt, Obama's job council director. Nobody on that side should be hurling stones at Romney.

[channonc 466]

RIR, so much for people sticking to the topic at hand. As people in Washington often say, "people don't vote based on the income level they are, they vote based on the income level they wish to become." That motto is illustrated by many in this thread.

For those of you non-millionaires who feel like the millionaires and billionaires need your help in lobbying on their behalf, feel free to carry on...

Speaking of the original post/topic -- what is it? To point out that Romney is wealthy and seeking public office? That's hardly unusual. Quite a few of those millionaire/billionaire "class" members are politicians: Lank1 Lank2

It's the nature of the beast to have wealthy people seek higher office in the US. I guess the real issue is to question if they have earned their money honestly or if they just inherited it a la Kennedy (pick any of them,) or married into it like John Kerry, or have enriched themselves while in office like the late Sen Robert Byrd or Nancy Peolsi, etc.

See, my beef is the fact that this guy says that millionaires are already taxed too much, and he pays an effective rate that's much less than my husband and I, and we are hardly rich. I believe he should be paying a higher effective rate than me. When someone thinks that $300,000 is "not that much" than paying a higher tax rate is "not that much".