Romney The Candidate Of The One-Percent

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from Greg Sargent at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/is-mitt-romney-the-candidate-of-the-one-percent/2011/11/28/gIQAHLBZ5N_blog.html


. . . Mitt Romney’s tax rates, and not just his corporate past and support for cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations, amount to an unexplored vulnerability in a general election. Because he gets income from investments, Romney would have paid roughly 14 percent of his income in taxes in 2010, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice — lower than the rate paid by many middle class taxpayers.

Wait, there’s more. According to Bloomberg News, Romney is now benefitting from the fundraising of Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman of the world’s largest private equity firm, who is also soliciting help for Romney from colleagues. Bloomberg presents this as a sign that Romney is “closing the sale with Wall Street’s wealthiest donors.”

But there’s more to it than this. As Pat Garofalo notes, Schwarzman is also well known as a warrior against efforts to close loopholes that benefit private equity firms. Indeed, this new Romney supporter has even compared his battle against such efforts to World War Two: (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/28/376572/schwartzman-romney-invade-poland/)

“It’s a war,” Schwarzman said of the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Obviously, people like Schwarzman will back the GOP nominee, whoever he is, and Dems will likely highlight this kind of thing to paint the eventual GOP nominee, whoever he is, as in the pocket of Wall Street. But the fact that Romney himself personally benefits from aspects of the tax code that Obama wants to change makes him a less-than-ideal messenger to deliver criticism of Obama's push for tax fairness, and will likely make Dem attacks along these lines more potent. After all, Dems can argue that not only do the Schwarzmans of the world prefer Romney’s policies, but on top of that, Romney himself is actually one of them.


read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/is-mitt-romney-the-candidate-of-the-one-percent/2011/11/28/gIQAHLBZ5N_blog.html

related:

Romney gains support of top Wall Street donor
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/195561-romney-gains-support-of-top-wall-street-donor
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-28/schwarzman-backs-romney-as-wall-street-turns-away-from-obama.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I believe you mean the *other* candidate of the 1%.

I believe that Obama's still way ahead in "contributions" from the bankers.