Rachel Maddow - Romney renews tax return questions with '47%' judgment

[Galraedia]

[BlueStreak]

1. She makes a good point. Romney was specific about "Federal income tax"

It may be a semantic argument, but how can you say that the payroll taxes (Social Security , medicaid, unemployment, etc) are NOT "Federal income taxes", but capital gains IS "federal income tax"?

The concept of capital gains is to tax the increased value of assets, not income per se. In that sense, it is more like a property tax. Now Romney uses the "carried interest" loophole to launder his income through the lower capital gains rate, so he would argue that he actually is paying "Federal income tax" when he pays his capital gains. Indeed, it is included in the same tax return.

But it is a perfectly valid argument to say that "Federal income tax" is the tax you pay on your adjusted gross income, and it seems that Romney doesn't pay much, if anything, on that. So that puts him in the 47%.

[Voice for Peace]

2. I'm so impressed with the speed & intelligence of everyone's responses in this campaign.

If Obama's campaign had laid out months and months of devious
plans in advance, it couldn't have been even this good. Almost like
there is a cosmic dance happening, all the elements conspiring to
trip Romney up wherever he goes.