Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it. Now – I realize that his father was a former CEO, former Governor, former Presidential candidate and that afforded him the ability to develop relationships with the most “elite” in society. His father was able to pay for him to go to Harvard; he didn’t get a scholarship…his dad did that.
I do not begrudge him for having led a privileged life, but I am incensed that he does not see how his own exclusive privileges have given him an unfair advantage that 99% of other Americans never had and never will. And now – his response to someone wanting to have a college education without having $100k in college debt later…either shop around for a better price if you want to afford college or join the military and “yeah, we’ll give you help.”
“Recognize that college is expensive,” Romney explained. “You don’t want to have huge debts. I know that it would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to make sure you pay for your college. But I’m not going to promise that. What I’m going to tell you is shop around, get a good price.
I feel that if you are willing to serve your country in the military for instance, that’s a place where we’re going to say, ‘Yeah, we’ll give you help.
Don’t expect the government to forget the debt that you take on. Recognize that you have to pay it back…. If you can’t afford it – shop around.”
~Mitt Romney
Source: Raw Story
Meanwhile – this is a man who benefits from special provisions in the tax code which allow him to be taxed at 15% tax rates before deductions due to a provision called the “carried interest rule” which his own company Bain Capital LOBBIED FOR. This essentially means that if he’s managing someone else’s money…he isn’t making a salary or regular income which could be taxed at 35%…no – by making money off of SOMEONE ELSE’S INVESTMENTS – he only has to pay 15%. And we all know – he paid less than 14% in taxes over the past two years as he made over $60 million as a self-described “unemployed” man.
Bain Capital has more than a rooting interest in Romney. Records show that the company spent more than $3.1 million from 2007 through 2011 for lobbying on issues from regulatory oversight of the financial industry to tax benefits for rich investors.
Romney’s Bain connections have drawn scrutiny, especially questions about the low tax rates that executives of private equity firms pay. Romney recently released his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, which showed that he’d paid a little less than 15 percent in taxes on his $42 million total income for the two years.
About $13 million was from “carried interest,” or a share of profits to equity managers on Bain investments that’s taxed at lower rates than ordinary earned income is. Among Bain’s lobbying interests was legislation that would treat “carried interest” as taxable income.
Source: McClatchy
As we have said before – Mitt Romney’s tax plan is skewed on behalf of the wealthiest Americans paid for by cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Under Mitt Romney’s plan – if one does the math…a person making $10 million a year looks to receive a $2.5 million tax cut.
For more information – click here: Study: Romney Tax Plan Heavily Tilted to Those With Highest Incomes. We’ve shown other analysis’ of Mitt Romney’s tax plan HERE, HERE, and HERE.
But it gets worse….Greg Sargent explains about the very likely possibility that Dems will raise a vote on the “carried interest rule” i.e. the Romney loophole:
The vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate will likely cast votes that would have the effect of protecting the enormous wealth of the man at the top of the ticket, whose worth has been estimated at north of $250 million.
Source: Greg Sargent
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