We Are the 47%: The Lousy Math Beyond Romney's Gaffe
By David Weigel
Way back in August 2011, when the Republican presidential primary was still in its race-to-the-right phase, I noticed that the contenders kept attacking "the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay taxes." Rick Perry, in his announcement speech, told activists that he and they were "dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don't even pay any income tax." As stimulus-minded Obama tax policies increased the number of Americans who paid no net income taxes, Republicans started characterizing these people as entitled and basically enslaved -- moochers that the rest of us had to pay for. After the Occupy Wall Street-related Tumblr "We Are the 99%" went large, conservatives started a Tumbler titled "We Are the 53%." They were the makers; all of y'all were the takers.
Up to now, apart from a few slips, Mitt Romney had been sidestepping this front of the class war.* Right up until this fundraiser, video of which was leaked to David Corn.
There's a lot here, but the main problem for Romney is that he goes even further than Perry in his critique of the people who don't pay income taxes. "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," he says. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the 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're hopeless. "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Got that? Romney is conflating the people who pay no net income tax with the people so dependent on government aid that they have to vote for Obama. But these aren't the same people! Most of the "lucky duckies," to use the classic WSJ term, are old people who subsist on Social Security. Elderly voters broke big for Republicans in 2010. Scores of poor whites who benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit vote for Republicans.
So Romney's conflating two concepts. One is that people who pay no net income taxes don't understand the "cost" of government. The other is that the socialist Democrats are voting themselves back into power by creating a poorer, more dependent electorate -- one that gets by on food stamps and unearned welfare checks. This is Tea Party rhetoric churned into something new and stupid.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/09/17/mitt_romney_47_gaffe_what_was_he_trying_to_say_.html
