Every time another radical Republican running for president speaks, the American people are reminded of how out of touch with economic reality they are. Example A: Mitt Romney.
Romney, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, should be ashamed for attacking my economic plan, but it’s not surprising he is. I want to rewrite our tax code to make it fair and help hard-working Americans save some money to give them a better shot at the American Dream. Mitt wants to make sure that the wealthiest Americans just keep getting wealthier and let everyone else pick up the scraps. Mitt’s all about more, more, more for the people who already have the most – and that’s just wrong.
The truth is Mitt Romney shouldn’t pay lower taxes on the money he makes from his money than middle-class families pay on the money they make from hard work. Neither should I. We’re both incredibly fortunate and we should pay our fair share.
That?s the big difference between people like Mitt Romney and me. Mitt Romney thinks he and his insider friends helped make America great, I think it?s the hundreds of millions of Americans in the working class and middle class who make America great. It?s these hard-working families who deserve a break and a chance to live the same American Dream as I have. That?s what I?m fighting for, and that?s what people like Mitt Romney have spent a lifetime fighting against.
(Emphasis Added)
The bolded line in the last paragraph is the key to me: “Mitt Romney thinks he and his insider friends helped make America great, I think it?s the hundreds of millions of Americans in the working class and middle class who make America great.”
That is exactly right, the Republicans think that this is the rich men’s country and we just live in it. They think the Hedge Fund trader and the inheritors of wealth make the country go and the workers are just “costs.” Of course, there are issues around capital flight and such, but in reality Edwards is talking about nothing more radical than going back to the top rate of taxation that we had under Ronald W Reagan, who IIRC wasn’t a well known socialist.
Working people from construction sites to office towers and hospitals to firehouses make this country productive, artificially low rates of taxes for income made on having lots of money do nothing to increase productivity it just shifts the burden. Politicians like Mitt Romney are all too willing to be a front for the wealthy classes while hiding it with cultural ruses like varmint hunting. John Edwards just called him out on it, I’d so love to see that match up in the general election.
Cross Posted at Boston for Edwards
The only face off John Edwards and Mitt Romney are going to have is the who-can-poll-lower match up.
I wouldn’t call that low-polling, Joe, would you? Edwards is ahead of the pack, though Clinton shows within the MOE:
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Real Clear Politics Iowa Polling Data
Either of them. As John points out Edwards is leading in Iowa, and Romney is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. I wish all of the candidates were spending as much time building the Democratic brand as Edwards is, and tearing down the Republican candidates.
… at his best! And Romney is the perfect foil. Romney, who is also leading in Iowa. (So I guess Joe is wrong on two counts). It seems the elitists are becoming bolder, more bent on their belief in their role: “We are what America is about.” Didn’t they used to hide under something called “trickle down economics”?
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Alas we’ve seen all too clearly now: the money doesn’t trickle down; it just sidles off shore!
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Edwards is emerging as a formidable defender of the majority.
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He seems to be the only candidate who is willing, ever, to take personal responsibility for his own positions, including errors.
…Mittens Romney. His primary claim to fame was that he was a son of former Michigan governor George (“I was brainwashed”) Romney. Who, as former head of American Motors Corp (remember the Rambler?) drove the company into the ground. It was probably Mittens’s association with his illustrious father that got him into Harvard Business School, where he became a glorified accountant. Kind of like–GWBush.
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Mitt’s second claim to fame was as “savior” of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. That was largely at taxpayers’ expense, of course. He parlayed that “success” into a governorship in Massachusetts, where, after spending millions to get more Republicans elected to the state legislature in 2004, ended up with a stupendous gain of minus three (or was it five? I’ve seen different counts). He’s been running away from the state that rejected him ever since.
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So, given those successes, why are any people–even those in other states, so enamored of Mittens? Could it be his hair? Could it be that he has been a successful salesman? If it’s the latter, let’s elect Ron Popeil as president.
…and maybe all taxpayers could get a Popeil Pocket FishermanTM!!!
…why didn’t he just get a Gentleman’s C like Kerry at Yale?
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Also – please advise – exactly WHAT tax money supported the Olympics?
If he were he would have taken a page out of Senator Kennedy’s book and put it all in his mothers name as a Florida resident even though she’s so old now she doesn’t even know where Florida is let alone live there… Thats OK though if it means Nada in taxes for Mr Chivas Regal. Maybe the TK buffalo can give Mitt a few pointers on beating the tax system as well as Ted has now for all these years ?
Or perhaps the Kerry scam is even better. The ole tax free municipal bond scam where he and mama T have all their (us ta be’s) John Heinz’ billions invested on which they pay the doughnut hole in taxes. Yup , that Mitt is just a nasty ole tax dodgin’ rich Republican, right Commrade?
Are you serious, Peter? I mean, SLC2002 is Romney’s main claim to competence, so I’d expect you to be familiar with the details.
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Since 1972, security has been one of the largest expenditures in any Olympics. Mitt Romney took over organizing the games in 1999. The Games were still going nowhere fast until 9/11. In the wake of the attack, the federal government stepped in to expand and cover security costs in the Olympics. Whereas in most games, the organizing committee is responsible for security, in SLC2002, the federal government footed the bill. This took a huge chunk of expenses off the books, and made Mitt Romney (yet another Republican whose incompetence is shadowed by being somewhere on 9/11) a hero, even though he governed what at the time was the most expensive Olympics ever held.
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The White House pegs security funding at $300 million in public funds, while Mitt cut only scrap some $80 million in expenditures. Given that the final budget was under $2 billion, security tax money paid for about one sixth of SLC2002.