Mitt Romney is catching a lot of flak for his surreptitiously recorded remarks about 47 percent of voters automatically being in the Obama column because they don’t pay federal income tax and thus see themselves as beneficiaries of big government.
Since I’ve warned about dependency and raised the alarm that we risk becoming another Greece unless entitlements are reformed, one might think I agree with the former Massachusetts governor.
Not quite. I think Romney raised an important issue, but he cited the wrong statistic and drew an unwarranted conclusion.
Here’s what I said to Neil Cavuto about the controversy.
To augment on those remarks, here’s where Romney was wrong.
Yes, we have almost half of households not paying federal income tax, and I recognize that there’s a risk on an unhealthy political dynamic if people begin to think they get government for free, but those people are not necessarily looking for freebies from government. Far from it. Many of them have private sector jobs and believe in self reliance and individual responsibility. Or they’re students, retirees, or others who don’t happen to have enough income to pay taxes, but definitely don’t see themselves as wards of the state.
If Romney wanted to be more accurate, he should have cited the share of households receiving goodies from the government. That number also is approaching 50 percent and it probably is much more correlated with the group of people in the country who see the state as a means of living off their fellow citizens. But even that correlation is likely to be very imprecise since some government beneficiaries – such as Social Security recipients – spent their lives in the private sector and are taking benefits simply because they had no choice but to participate in the system.
Moreover, there are some people who pay tax and don’t receive programmatic benefits, yet are part of the proverbial moocher class. Many government bureaucrats obviously would be on that list, as would some union members, trial lawyers, etc.
However, even though Romney picked the wrong statistic and overstated the implications, he indirectly stumbled on a key issue. As seen in both BIS and OECD data, the U.S. is at risk of Greek-style fiscal chaos at some point in the not-too-distant future because of a rising burden of government spending.
I have no idea what share of the population today actually is part of the dependency class that Mitt Romney inarticulately described, but I don’t think I’m going out on limb to say that it has grown during the Bush-Obama years and it will continue to expand.
If we want to maintain American exceptionalism (both in theory and reality), it would be a very good idea to figure out how to avoid having more people trapped in lives of government dependency.
P.S. Here are two amusing cartoons about the dependency mindset, a great Chuck Asay cartoon showing what happens when there’s nothing left to steal, as well as the famous riding-in-the-wagon cartoons produced by a former Cato intern.
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I am hoping that we don’t put Obama back in office. Romney will do better I hope. We don’t need another George W. Bush who took a balanced budget and bloated it.
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And what about self employed people who aren’t making enough money to pay taxes? i.e. capitalists in their attitude and Mitt counts them as entitlement seekers.
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For example, take a look at this Obama speech from 9/22:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/22/remarks-president-campaign-event-milwaukee-theater
I can’t get one paragraph in before being struck with its impreciseness. “Top-down economics never works.” By that, he doesn’t mean top-down economics where those in control make most of the decisions. He means giving tax breaks to the wealthy at “the top”.
That’s not top-down economics. Top-down economics is what Obama wants to do.
I first heard Obama make this pitch in a commercial during the Olympics. I haven’t seen much effort to talk about it’s impreciseness and what top-down economics really means and why it doesn’t work.
I found it strange why this comment got so much parsing from the right. It’s like we can’t pass up an opportunity to demonstrate just how clear-thinking and fair we are.
“Let’s not forget crony capitalists. Not enough of them to swing any state, except perhaps New York, but they have an impact by financing propaganda.”
This is true. the financiers at Solyndra were Democratic donors, and Obama’s stimulus gave around $16 billion to companies and people who were friends and funders of Democrats and Obama.
The Democrat party is in many respects a coalition of various ‘takers’ whether it is students on loans, users of govt assistance, govt workers and academics/educators (usually on a govt payroll), or trial lawyers depedent on govt laws to allow them to pursue their ambulance-chasing ways. That coalition of takers is up against the coalition of ‘makers’ ie taxpayers and business owners who pay for government and pay the costs and overhead of govt action and regulation. aka the ‘leave us alone’ coalition.
The fundamental political divide in this country is takers vs makers. Now, some will object “But I know plenty of makers who vote Democrat!” Yes, you do. They are known as suckers. they are people indoctrinated by academics/educators to the taker philosophy, by people who have their own interests at heart.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets.
As I commented on another blog, Romney cannot possibly believe that 47% figure, because nobody would run for election with a 47% disadvantage from the start.
“Many government bureaucrats obviously would be on that list, as would some union members, trial lawyers, etc.”
Let’s not forget crony capitalists. Not enough of them to swing any state, except perhaps New York, but they have an impact by financing propaganda.
I think the essence of what he said was perfectly reasonable. Those people who are dependent on government welfare will vote for politicians who distribute doles. His statements were publicized in bad light, not that his statements were in itself inappropriate. Yes politicians should always try to be more articulate to get their ideas across effectively and to avoid being misquoted at the same time.
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I agree that Romney is somewhat wrong about the ‘47%’ remark, since everyone pays some form of taxes. However, by failing to differentiate between those who earn (or have earned) their income and those who are getting an unearned flow of income (in the sense that they did not, at some point, work for it, Romney risked lumping seniors on pensions and social security , as well as those middle class families with large deductions with those who show no initiative and are only looking for a freebie through life. The latter are no where near 47% and Romney should have known better.
@Thad..Or you have been robbed at gunpoint when you get nothing because you die before you can collect anything? How much of a moocher are you if you don’t get anywhere near what you put in? And how many fall into the category you created vs the number who fall into the one I point out?
So let’s start defining dependency with some objective metrics, like you’re a moocher when you get 150% of what you paid in SS taxes, etc.
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