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Romney reveals he pays about 15% in taxes(edited)

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Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

haymarket said:
What a completely ridiculous thing to say about workers who had factory jobs. Why do you need to resort to putting labels on people like DUMB and engaging in name calling? There were several men in my family and many in my neighborhood who had factory jobs and many were intelligent people who could put to shame some here who think their fancy elite school sheepskins confer IQ point upon them.

As I finished my Bachelors, I worked for six months on a garbage truck and the driver was an old guy - a tough Finn from the upper peninsula with a sixth grade education. The man could talk to you about current events and politics like you were speaking to William Buckley. Thats not a factory job but some elitists would consider that even lower I would imagine.

Please Turtle, leave the condescending elitism and name calling out of this.
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the feigned indignation is amusing but I was merely recalling a quote from an article I read 25 years ago in the local paper,. it was talking about the old assembly plants for GM in Norwood Ohio that closed. the article spoke of three generations of Norwood HS boys who went to a job where being dumb didn't hurt as long as you were strong and had a good work ethic. that got you a ticket to the middle class.

Here is a reference to that plant and what happened to that city (I grew up less than a few miles from the place, my maternal grandfather worked on the border of Norwood in a machine tool factory)


Norwood Assembly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Catawba said:
Romney is the perfect representative of the 1% to go into battle against the 99% in November ~

Romney tax returns show he's no average multimillionaire
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Good lord! How long have you been a party member? Is there something wrong with making money?


Lets deal with the first means of wealth creation. You invest, i.e. own a business that makes a product or provides a service. You hire people, i.e. give them your money, to produce your product or provide your services. In a free market, you pay a competitive wage. If the business does well, you make money. Since it is your money that is at risk in the first place, you get the largest reward. That money then gets invested in expanding the business, or creating/buying other businesses. If you've done your job right, they make money too. All the time, you're providing jobs and employing people.
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Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

haymarket said:
When can we actually expect you to begin debate here?
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There IS no debate...you are a partisan hack feigning outrage. Hell...even the liberals on this board see you for what you are.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

ric27 said:
Good lord! How long have you been a party member?​
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Very unoriginal insult


Is there something wrong with making money?
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Absolutely nothing!


Lets deal with the first means of wealth creation. You invest, i.e. own a business that makes a product or provides a service. You hire people, i.e. give them your money, to produce your product or provide your services. In a free market, you pay a competitive wage. If the business does well, you make money. Since it is your money that is at risk in the first place, you get the largest reward. That money then gets invested in expanding the business, or creating/buying other businesses. If you've done your job right, they make money too. All the time, you're providing jobs and employing people.
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Ah, you see that is where trickle down theory failed for the middle class in the US. Once they started providing tax cuts to businesses for outsourcing jobs, and not producing jobs in this country, as well as reducing their tax rates for the rich to the point where large debt accumulated so that benefits for middle class seniors would need to be cut, they began to lose support of the middle class. After the 2010 election when they declared open war on the middle lass they sealed their doom for a possible win this year.

Have you looked at the GOP candidates tax plans? There are no significant tax cuts for the middle class, but there are big tax cuts for the wealthy, which would only exasperate the huge wealth disparity that is dragging our economy down.

Who in the middle class, in their right mind, would vote for a party that has promised to cut their benefits so they can provide even greater tax cuts to the rich???
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

VanceMack said:
There IS no debate...you are a partisan hack feigning outrage. Hell...even the liberals on this board see you for what you are.
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The irony of you calling anyone else a partisan hack could knock the earth off its axis. :lol:
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

AdamT said:
The irony of you calling anyone else a partisan hack could knock the earth off its axis. :lol:
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Right...because my support of Obama as CiC, continued positive support of his war on terror, third party support, repeated comments about republicans and dems being two sides of the same coin, stated positions on Bush being the primary reason for leaving the GOP in 2003, spoken support for social spending and health care at the state and local levels, support for immigration amnesty, and opposition to changing abortion laws are SO partisan. Baby...you are the president of the partisan hack club. You dont even have to speak on ANY subject...just type 10 dots...its the same partisan rhetoric every time. Just pull your string, baby...Not shockingly...your VP thanked your post.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

VanceMack said:
Right...because my support of Obama as CiC, continued positive support of his war on terror, third party support, repeated comments about republicans and dems being two sides of the same coin, stated positions on Bush being the primary reason for leaving the GOP in 2003, spoken support for social spending and health care at the state and local levels, support for immigration amnesty, and opposition to changing abortion laws are SO partisan. Baby...you are the president of the partisan hack club. You dont even have to speak on ANY subject...just type 10 dots...its the same partisan rhetoric every time. Just pull your string, baby...Not shockingly...your VP thanked your post.
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It's funny, but the only time I ever see you claiming to support those ideas is when you're defending yourself against someone who you've labeled a partisan hack who's returning the favor.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

AdamT said:
It's funny, but the only time I ever see you claiming to support those ideas is when you're defending yourself against someone who you've labeled a partisan hack who's returning the favor.
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Believe what you want. The posts are there. Facts are what they are...

and you is what you is...
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

ric27 said:
Good lord! How long have you been a party member? Is there something wrong with making money?


Lets deal with the first means of wealth creation. You invest, i.e. own a business that makes a product or provides a service. You hire people, i.e. give them your money, to produce your product or provide your services. In a free market, you pay a competitive wage. If the business does well, you make money. Since it is your money that is at risk in the first place, you get the largest reward. That money then gets invested in expanding the business, or creating/buying other businesses. If you've done your job right, they make money too. All the time, you're providing jobs and employing people
​
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That is good capitalism... the way it is suppose to work: a partnership of capital, technology and labor. Bain, however, represented the perverted side of capitalism.... they did not deploy money necessary to grow a business. They were not equity investors. The were serial houseflippers; looking for undervalued assets, buying into them, and quickly extracting maximum returns for their financial investors. There was not partnership of capital, technology and labor; just financial exploitation. Bain never started a business. They used very little of their own capital, but borrowed heavily on the assets of the target company often seriously weakening the balance and long-term viability of the business and then "feed" the deal up in away that Bain quickly got its principal back.

The Kaybee Toys deal is very typical of a private equity (previously known as leveraged buy-out) deals: KB Toys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kaybee founders did well. Bain partners did well. The secured creditors likely did ok.... the mall owners, employees and general creditors got screwed.

While Apple, Microsoft and Google represent what is right with the American economy; Bain represents what is wrong with it.

It would be really great to have Romney be the nominee, as he most likely is, because the 99%/1% will clearly be on trial... and the 1% will lose.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

upsideguy said:
That is good capitalism... the way it is suppose to work: a partnership of capital, technology and labor. Bain, however, represented the perverted side of capitalism.... they did not deploy money necessary to grow a business. They were not equity investors. The were serial houseflippers; looking for undervalued assets, buying into them, and quickly extracting maximum returns for their financial investors. There was not partnership of capital, technology and labor; just financial exploitation. Bain never started a business.
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Yeah I think that's exactly right. I worked at a number of software companies over the years that dealt with similar firms. They were all the same. They would buy the company, lay off a bunch of people and pressure those that they kept into working absurdly long hours to get the expenses as low as possible for one quarter. The employees would mostly start looking for new jobs, but they'd still be around at least until the end of the quarter usually. Then squeeze every penny out of the customers all in one quarter no matter what. They would do things like say "well you are going to need to upgrade next year, so if you buy the license this quarter, we'll give you 80% off" so that they could put it all on the books for a single quarter. They'd cut tech support and basically tell all the customers that were not spending new money right that quarter to go screw themselves. They'd direct engineering to come up with something- anything- that would allow them to say that we built something related to the latest fad (internet 2.0 or what have you). Then they'd be able to sell the company at a big markup because on paper it looked like we were suddenly very profitable. But in reality, they burned out the employees, they were using up a big chunk of the next year's revenue with those sweet deals for buying this quarter, they were alienating customers, they were forcing engineering down a bad path... But on paper, it all looked great... So they'd sell the company for a bundle and then it would fall apart shortly after the sale when half the employees quit, the customers dropped us, our competitors that had been focused on their core product surpassed us... IMO it's a huge problem with the way capitalism is working at the moment. Too shallow. Too much fixation on superficial variables, not enough on the actual business of making things people want.
 
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Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

upsideguy said:
That is good capitalism... the way it is suppose to work: a partnership of capital, technology and labor. Bain, however, represented the perverted side of capitalism.... they did not deploy money necessary to grow a business.
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the perverted side of capitalism....lol ????

Good or perverted is not the issue, the issue is whether it's legal or illegal

Do you see any differentiation in honest wealth v. "dishonest" wealth?

If so...how?
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

ric27 said:
the perverted side of capitalism....lol ????

Good or perverted is not the issue, the issue is whether it's legal or illegal

Do you see any differentiation in honest wealth v. "dishonest" wealth?

If so...how?
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This is, I think, where the right has gone off the rails a bit. The "corporations can do no wrong" blind spot...

Capitalism isn't just the theory that if the government doesn't mess with the corporations everything turns out peachy. No economist has ever put forward a theory that that was true. Capitalism is the idea that in an efficient market competition will tend to lead producers to make the best products at the lowest prices. That simple idea turns out to be a solution to many, many, problems humanity faces. But that doesn't equate to saying that corporations can do no wrong... Not at all. The free market doesn't work if there is fraud, poor information, collusion, externalities that aren't accounted for, deception, monopoly, etc. In my experience, companies like Bain Capital that I've worked with primary profit off of mild deception. They buy companies and artificially try to dress it up so that it looks like it's more profitable than it really is, then they cash in on that. That isn't an efficient market producing the best products at the lowest prices. It is market inefficiency.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

AdamT said:
.... as opposed to the Republican plan, which makes 99% of Americans suffer so we can have MORE massive tax cuts for the rich.
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99% of Americans suffer?

Who gave you this information? Was it a reliable source?
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Grant said:
99% of Americans suffer?

Who gave you this information? Was it a reliable source?
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The 99%!!! Gawd, some people might honestly be stupid enough to believe it!:lamo:lamo:lamo:lamo:lamo:...I could go on, but I gather you get my point.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

ric27 said:
the perverted side of capitalism....lol ????

Good or perverted is not the issue, the issue is whether it's legal or illegal

Do you see any differentiation in honest wealth v. "dishonest" wealth?

If so...how?
Click to expand...

Good vs perverted is very much the issue. Just because something is legal does not make it healthy. Its important to understand the substantive from the shallow; the win-win from the win-lose. Bain's business is financial engineering. They follow almost the same model as house-flippers. Its not substantive. It generally does not help the economy. They are not as focused in financing growth or bringing products to market as they are on making money for their investors. It is "vulture" capitalism as opposed to venture capitalism. In general, this business model hurts our economy rather than grows the economy. Its not illegal, its not necessarily immoral, but its not healthy.

Bain should be put on trial in this election. Its important for people to understand how much wealth in made in the country; not always by creating the new lightbulb or I-phone, but often by stealing equity; often at the expense of the unwealthy. It is a form of class warfare, with the 1% class the winners.
 
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Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

teamosil said:
In my experience, companies like Bain Capital that I've worked with primary profit off of mild deception. They buy companies and artificially try to dress it up so that it looks like it's more profitable than it really is, then they cash in on that. That isn't an efficient market producing the best products at the lowest prices. It is market inefficiency.
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Do you have any evidence, in your experience, that Mitt Romney was ever involved in fraud, i.e. dressing a company up so that it looks more profitable than it really us and then "cashing in".

What was the company or companies involved, and what were the consequences and the charges laid?
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

upsideguy said:
Good vs perverted is very much the issue. Just because something is legal does not make it healthy. Its important to understand the substantive from the shallow; the win-win from the win-lose. Bain's business is financial engineering. They follow almost the same model as house-flippers. Its not substantive. It generally does not help the economy. They are not as focused in financing growth or bringing products to market as they are on making money for their investors. It is "vulture" capitalism as opposed to venture capitalism. In general, this business model hurts our economy rather than grows the economy. Its not illegal, its not necessarily immoral, but its not healthy.

Bain should be put on trial in this election. Its important for people to understand how much wealth in made in the country; not always by creating the new lightbulb or I-phone, but often by stealing equity; often at the expense of the unwealthy. It is a form of class warfare, with the 1% class the winners.
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Which companies are you referring to and what harm was done in trying to save any of these troubled companies?
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Grant said:
99% of Americans suffer?

Who gave you this information? Was it a reliable source?
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Its the standard mantra of the far left to try to convince people that everyone is badly off when 1 percent does really well.

its bunk of course but its a needed weapon to expand the creeping crud of class warfare that the leftist elite and wannabee elites promote in order to gain more wealth and power from those who have actually earned the wealth
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

TurtleDude said:
Its the standard mantra of the far left to try to convince people that everyone is badly off when 1 percent does really well.

its bunk of course but its a needed weapon to expand the creeping crud of class warfare that the leftist elite and wannabee elites promote in order to gain more wealth and power from those who have actually earned the wealth
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You're right, of course, TD, but they so often throw out these numbers, or "facts" , and I occasionally like to call them on it. They then tend to fall silent after that though they'll always show up somewhere else making the same goofy claims. It's pop-a-mole.

I'm not long on conspiracy theories but if anyone ever deliberately set out to ruin a country they'd probably follow in the footsteps of BHO. Obama’s Leftism « Commentary Magazine
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Grant said:
You're right, of course, TD, but they so often throw out these numbers, or "facts" , and I occasionally like to call them on it. They then tend to fall silent after that though they'll always show up somewhere else making the same goofy claims. It's pop-a-mole.

I'm not long on conspiracy theories but if anyone ever deliberately set out to ruin a country they'd probably follow in the footsteps of BHO. Obama’s Leftism « Commentary Magazine
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With all of his experience, you thought he would know better. Oh damn...wait.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Romney paid a lower tax rate than most secretaries

"Under extreme pressure, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released is 2010 tax return and an estimate of his 2011 return today. The return reveals Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9% on income of $42 million dollars. That is a lower tax rate than his opponent Newt Gingrich and President Obama paid.

It is also a lower rate than Warren Buffet’s secretary paid, and almost every secretary in the country.

Romney has funds in offshore accounts

The returns reveal that Romney has funds in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Ireland—places that the wealthy use to avoid taxes. He also closed an account in a Swiss Bank in 2010 because his investment advisor thought that account would be an embarrassment for the candidate Romney.

Romney claims that these accounts are used for investments and not used to avoid taxes. This can not be verified. Romney only released the return for 2010 and refuses to release any additional returns so it will be impossible for voters to determine if Romney did in fact avoid taxes in these off shore accounts before he began sanitizing his affairs in preparation for the presidential campaign."

"Romney’s father, who ran for President in 1968 released 12 years returns because he said that if a candidate released only one year, it could be manipulated and would not show a true picture of his financial affairs. Romney made it clear he has no intention of releasing more returns. This begs the question what is he hiding? If you have nothing to hide, why hide it?

Romney makes more in a day than the average family does in a year."

"Romney just doesn’t get it. The issue is not his wealth; it is the basic inequities in our tax code that allows a wealthy person to pay such a low tax rate legally. Furthermore, his proposed tax plan would allow him to pay about 40% less in taxes than he does now making the inequities greater."
Romney paid a lower tax rate than most secretaries - National economic policy | Examiner.com
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

Grant said:
Do you have any evidence, in your experience, that Mitt Romney was ever involved in fraud, i.e. dressing a company up so that it looks more profitable than it really us and then "cashing in".

What was the company or companies involved, and what were the consequences and the charges laid?
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Charges? It's not illegal and it's not legally fraud. That's what most sort of mid range VC's do. They buy small to medium companies, hold them for a year or so, then sell them. Their whole goal for that year is to make it look good on paper so they can sell it. Most essential is that it look good for that last quarter.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

I think the bottom line is that Romney can't win a presidential election. He's too out of touch with regular people. He's the poster child for why the Republican plan doesn't make sense. Look at how he conducted himself in the debate last night. He had to spend half of the time he had on camera talking about his Swiss bank account and his blind trust and various different types of funds he owns... He'll spend the whole campaign having to explain why he keeps his money in offshore accounts and how come he pays a lower percentage in taxes than virtually anybody when you include state and federal and that when he left his Swiss bank account off of his disclosure form to the federal elections commission it was just an oversight and blah blah blah. That isn't something working people can possibly connect with. The message that we need to lower his taxes even more while people on social security have to tighten their belts isn't a message he can try to sell. The lines about how anybody can get rich if they just work hard isn't one that a guy whose dad was the CEO of a half dozen corporations and the governor of Michigan can sell. He can't use the job creator line after his record at Bain got exposed. He's pretty much incapable of running a Republican platform at all at this point.

And this is all before the Democrats have even started going after him. It got this bad just with Republican audiences and Republican opponents who are all trying really hard not to look like they have a problem with megarich people. Democrats aren't so squeamish about pointing out this kind stuff. It'll get a whole lot worse for him after the primary if he's the nominee.

A megarich guy could run for president as a Republican but he'd need to be self made. He'd need to have a clear cut story about what it is that he adds to the economy that explains how he got so much money. He'd need to have hired people to make something or provide some service, not just shuffled around papers and skimmed percentages off transactions. He would need to have paid a lot of a taxes. Without those things, the story just doesn't work for a Republican. It might work on most solid Republican voters, but it won't fly with moderates and it won't inspire huge turnout even from the solid Republicans. 38% of of Republicans and 57% of independents say that their biggest concern with our tax system is that the rich don't pay enough. A Republican can't win in this climate with Romney's angle.
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

teamosil said:
I think the bottom line is that Romney can't win a presidential election. He's too out of touch with regular people. He's the poster child for why the Republican plan doesn't make sense. Look at how he conducted himself in the debate last night. He had to spend half of the time he had on camera talking about his Swiss bank account and his blind trust and various different types of funds he owns... He'll spend the whole campaign having to explain why he keeps his money in offshore accounts and how come he pays a lower percentage in taxes than virtually anybody when you include state and federal and that when he left his Swiss bank account off of his disclosure form to the federal elections commission it was just an oversight and blah blah blah. That isn't something working people can possibly connect with. The message that we need to lower his taxes even more while people on social security have to tighten their belts isn't a message he can try to sell. The lines about how anybody can get rich if they just work hard isn't one that a guy whose dad was the CEO of a half dozen corporations and the governor of Michigan can sell. He can't use the job creator line after his record at Bain got exposed. He's pretty much incapable of running a Republican platform at all at this point.

And this is all before the Democrats have even started going after him. It got this bad just with Republican audiences and Republican opponents who are all trying really hard not to look like they have a problem with megarich people. Democrats aren't so squeamish about pointing out this kind stuff. It'll get a whole lot worse for him after the primary if he's the nominee.

A megarich guy could run for president as a Republican but he'd need to be self made. He'd need to have a clear cut story about what it is that he adds to the economy that explains how he got so much money. He'd need to have hired people to make something or provide some service, not just shuffled around papers and skimmed percentages off transactions. He would need to have paid a lot of a taxes. Without those things, the story just doesn't work for a Republican. It might work on most solid Republican voters, but it won't fly with moderates and it won't inspire huge turnout even from the solid Republicans. 38% of of Republicans and 57% of independents say that their biggest concern with our tax system is that the rich don't pay enough. A Republican can't win in this climate with Romney's angle.
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Because the mega rich dems are SO connected with the little folk...right? :lamo
 
Re: Romney's tax rate is only half as high as the middle class pays

VanceMack said:
Because the mega rich dems are SO connected with the little folk...right? :lamo
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What matters is how you vote. If you vote for the people - the vast majority of people who work for a living and are struggling right now, that is what the people notice first. Your own personal finances rank down the list unless you constantly vote against the people then they merely confirm your bias.

Working Democrats are NOT against rich folks. They are against rich folks who are against them.
 
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