Percent signs have become a social fad. “We are the 99%,” the progressive drumbeat of the short-lived Occupy Wall Street movement was popularized as a reference to the 1% of the American population that controls roughly 50% of the wealth. While the occupations have since died, this reminder of our economic disparity has entered the political consciousness in a noticeable way, becoming a prevalent point of argument in the presidential election.
In light of this, I’d like to propose a new ratio-based social movement. While I might need a few days, a lot of paper and a few PR specialists to help me out, this refrain will be based around the 47%. To be more exact, the 47% of the U.S. population that pays no federal income tax, which Mitt Romney spoke about at a private $50,000-per-person fundraiser in Boca Raton, FL. Romney’s comments were caught on film and released by the liberal magazine Mother Jones. Romney said of these people that:
“There are 47 percent who are with [President Obama], 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 will vote for this president no matter what.” He went on to say, “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility for their lives.”
Mitt Romney wasn’t lying when he said that 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax. He left out the fact these people are most often low-income families or elderly social security collectors, and that they are often still responsible for paying state income tax as well as numerous other taxes. Nonetheless, his figure was correct.
It might be easy to dismiss these comments as yet another meaningless gaffe in what, for Romney, has easily become the Year of the Gaffe, but the circumstances of these comments make them seem far more meaningful. Politics is a dirty game because people feel like they’re being lied to or the whole truth is being concealed, and in most cases it probably is; but when seats at the dinner table are $50,000 apiece, people don’t want to be lied to. It’s easy to see how a candidate would decide to hold nothing back in front of this particular crowd as a gesture of respect for their time and political support as well as an attempt to secure future donations. Whether this is morally sound or not, it’s the nature of the game and something that any orthodox politician goes through.
Mitt Romney wasn’t giving a stump speech and offhandedly making an offensive remark. He was talking shop; he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and it’s hard to explain how he could have tripped into that scenario. It could have happened to anyone but to Romney’s misfortune it happened to him, and it exposes the underlying philosophies of the Romney candidacy and potential Romney presidency.
These philosophies, confirming the greatest suspicions and fears of Democrats, take a divisive approach. They attempt to divide the American populace by relegating the less fortunate to a point below what Romney views as his base. His statements are meant to indicate that he isn’t the candidate of these people, those who need government assistance to achieve the most basic standard of living. By extension, he isn’t their president.
The fact is these people – of whom I’m a member, as a college student who receives government aid – need a candidate and a president that represents them now more than ever. The 47% is as large and as needy as it is because of a decade of neglect and failed conservative policies that brought on the worst economic decline in generations, negatively affecting the welfare of people across the spectrum. Romney’s philosophy on the 47% and the statements he’s since made about his views of wealth redistribution threaten to bring about an economic regression. Now isn’t the time to turn away from the 47% but the time to embrace them, and to bring their issues to the forefront. It’s hard to imagine a country succeeding because only half of its people do. I’m happy that Mitt Romney was able to remind me of this because now isn’t a time when we can ignore the 47%; it’s a time when we need them to succeed more than ever. •
I HATE MITT ROMNEY
What a hypocrite Mitt Romney is. Just when was it ever a necessity for hime to “take personal responsibility” for his own life? He was born to the CEO of American Motors. He was sent to fine private schools. All that is required of someone with those huge birth advantages is to not screw up really badly, and life will be very nice indeed. He convenienty forgets that for those born at the top there is no struggle anywhere close to what all of the rest of us have to get through. Plenty of us 47%’ers he hold in such low regard are taking all the responsibilty the system allows us to. If he were to be elected, it will only be worse. I hate him too!