What did he mean by, "47 percent"?
Sep. 20th, 2012 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumWhat is the, “moocher” bullshit really all about?
My honest opinion? Brown people.
It’s the latest, “welfare queen” attack. Used to be you could say nigger, then you had to say blacks, then you couldn’t say blacks... but each time the term was changed, each time the racist shit was made a less acceptable (at least in public) some new term came in.
The fact of the matter is most people who are some form of, “the dole”, don’t see themselves as “mooching”. They are taking advantage of the social safety net, in legitimate ways. Just ask them. The private, who has a family and whose wife can’t get a decent job because she’s a high school graduate, and they just moved 2,000 miles because that’s where his first duty station is... he’s on food stamps, because they have a kid and he’s making 1,491 a month, i.e. 17,892 a year (call it S. Carolina; he’s stationed at Ft. Bragg, and they have on post housing).
That gets him/them a whopping $300 a month.
Do they think Mitt Romney is talking about them? No. They aren’t mooching. They don’t pay any federal income taxes (but he is paying payroll taxes, so he’s coughing up more of his income than Mitt Romeny is, but I digress). His net, after payroll taxes is about 15,000, add in the food stamps and he’s got about 18,600 to play with (though 3,600 of that is illiquid, as it’s vouchers only good for food).
They are a lot better off than someone on a minimum wage job. They have medical (though his dependents aren’t covered for free, the premium for TriCare isn’t a huge hit... about $375 a year). They have housing. His food is paid for.
Minuum wage in SC pays, if you are working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, $15,000: gross. After payroll taxes (again, more than Mitt Romney pays; in part because he doesn’t pay payroll taxes); that’s 12,700 a year. Some estimates gives that same family a whopping $449 a month in food stamps.
They don’t think they are moochers either.
So who are these, “47 percent” people Romney, and the other Right Wing Talking Heads have been going on about for the past year?
Blacks and Hispanics.
Ask people what percentage of the US population are black, and a lot will answer, “25-30 percent” The perception of a large number of hispanics (esp. with the estimates of undocumented workers running as high as 11 million, and the common perception ignoring the Irish nannies, and making them all “job stealing Mexicans”) and the message of, “takers” could have failed to gain any traction. That the media, esp. the Republican, and Beltway pundits, took it as seriously as they did is surprising.
That, I think, more than anything else is why the Romney campaign is presently in a state of discombobulation, bordering on free-fall. They didn’t expect it to matter if/when a record of his comments at things like the Leder fundraiser came out. There would have been some careful parsing of what he was saying (that he was talking about not caring how they voted; and expanding that he really does care about them, and, “wants to see those Americans who have fallen out of the ranks of those earning enough money to pay taxes”) and some pounding on the “need to reform the tax code so everyone pays a fair share” and the base would get the message that “those people” vote for Obama, but “real Americans are Republicans”.
But it doesn’t mean the folks who are presently planning to vote for Romney will see him as calling them moochers, because the ability to partition oneself as being separate from, “those lazy bums on welfare,” is something the way the USA handles its social safety net makes people think. Look at Romney, his family was a beneficiary of “welfare” when they moved back to the US from Mexico (and no one wants to speculate as to why they were in Mexico in the first place; mostly because it’s interesting, but not relevant). Look at where the highest percentages of federal assistance live
So I’m glad to see this being hit, hard and long. I’m even happier the Peggy Noonans, and the David Brooks, are hitting it, because it makes it possible for some of the people who aren’t already dedicated in their votes (the “swing” voters”) to hear voices from, “Romney’s side” who are saying he’s out of touch.
But it’s not going to make a huge swing in the polls. The hope is it will make a difference in places like Florida, Ohio, Wi
My honest opinion? Brown people.
It’s the latest, “welfare queen” attack. Used to be you could say nigger, then you had to say blacks, then you couldn’t say blacks... but each time the term was changed, each time the racist shit was made a less acceptable (at least in public) some new term came in.
The fact of the matter is most people who are some form of, “the dole”, don’t see themselves as “mooching”. They are taking advantage of the social safety net, in legitimate ways. Just ask them. The private, who has a family and whose wife can’t get a decent job because she’s a high school graduate, and they just moved 2,000 miles because that’s where his first duty station is... he’s on food stamps, because they have a kid and he’s making 1,491 a month, i.e. 17,892 a year (call it S. Carolina; he’s stationed at Ft. Bragg, and they have on post housing).
That gets him/them a whopping $300 a month.
Do they think Mitt Romney is talking about them? No. They aren’t mooching. They don’t pay any federal income taxes (but he is paying payroll taxes, so he’s coughing up more of his income than Mitt Romeny is, but I digress). His net, after payroll taxes is about 15,000, add in the food stamps and he’s got about 18,600 to play with (though 3,600 of that is illiquid, as it’s vouchers only good for food).
They are a lot better off than someone on a minimum wage job. They have medical (though his dependents aren’t covered for free, the premium for TriCare isn’t a huge hit... about $375 a year). They have housing. His food is paid for.
Minuum wage in SC pays, if you are working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, $15,000: gross. After payroll taxes (again, more than Mitt Romney pays; in part because he doesn’t pay payroll taxes); that’s 12,700 a year. Some estimates gives that same family a whopping $449 a month in food stamps.
They don’t think they are moochers either.
So who are these, “47 percent” people Romney, and the other Right Wing Talking Heads have been going on about for the past year?
Blacks and Hispanics.
Ask people what percentage of the US population are black, and a lot will answer, “25-30 percent” The perception of a large number of hispanics (esp. with the estimates of undocumented workers running as high as 11 million, and the common perception ignoring the Irish nannies, and making them all “job stealing Mexicans”) and the message of, “takers” could have failed to gain any traction. That the media, esp. the Republican, and Beltway pundits, took it as seriously as they did is surprising.
That, I think, more than anything else is why the Romney campaign is presently in a state of discombobulation, bordering on free-fall. They didn’t expect it to matter if/when a record of his comments at things like the Leder fundraiser came out. There would have been some careful parsing of what he was saying (that he was talking about not caring how they voted; and expanding that he really does care about them, and, “wants to see those Americans who have fallen out of the ranks of those earning enough money to pay taxes”) and some pounding on the “need to reform the tax code so everyone pays a fair share” and the base would get the message that “those people” vote for Obama, but “real Americans are Republicans”.
But it doesn’t mean the folks who are presently planning to vote for Romney will see him as calling them moochers, because the ability to partition oneself as being separate from, “those lazy bums on welfare,” is something the way the USA handles its social safety net makes people think. Look at Romney, his family was a beneficiary of “welfare” when they moved back to the US from Mexico (and no one wants to speculate as to why they were in Mexico in the first place; mostly because it’s interesting, but not relevant). Look at where the highest percentages of federal assistance live
So I’m glad to see this being hit, hard and long. I’m even happier the Peggy Noonans, and the David Brooks, are hitting it, because it makes it possible for some of the people who aren’t already dedicated in their votes (the “swing” voters”) to hear voices from, “Romney’s side” who are saying he’s out of touch.
But it’s not going to make a huge swing in the polls. The hope is it will make a difference in places like Florida, Ohio, Wi
no subject
Date: 2012-09-21 03:18 pm (UTC)People who pay no income tax include:
* Retired people, living off their (presumably nobly-earned) savings;
* Enlisted people in the military supporting a family;
* College students whose parents are paying their way;
* Children (I *really* want to know if that 47% includes minors. Oh, and does that babble about those who think they're "entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing"... does that include fetuses? Aren't those the ultimate moochers, in his mind?)
* Unemployed spouses who, for whatever reasons, file taxes separately
* Clergy who live off a stipend
He made the mistake of conflating the mythical "welfare queens" with people who are supported by means the government doesn't consider to be taxable income. (And said they're all going to vote for Obama. Oops. Again, I want to know if that 47% includes kids, who I really doubt are going to vote for Obama.)
I'm delighted this is getting widespread coverage. I'm enjoying seeing politicians caught out by "wait, I said that to this audience; I didn't want everyone to know I thought that." Or, of course, "I didn't mean that; I only said it to that group to win their votes."
I'm *so* looking forward to the debate; Obama's *good* with random questions, and Romney consistently screws up the answer to anything that's not on his pre-set list of talking points.