LM Otero, APMickey Corsi protests outside a Romney fundraiser in Dallas on Tuesday.
LM Otero, APMickey Corsi protests outside a Romney fundraiser in Dallas on Tuesday.
The nation's tax code does let too many people off the hook, undermining the sense that Americans are all in this together. And the many federal entitlement programs do threaten to create an unaffordable culture of dependency.But as is too often the case with the Republican presidential candidate, he muddles things up. He confuses the 47% who pay no income taxes with the 49% who get government benefits. And he conflates both groups with supporters of President Obama. In fact, the three groups overlap only in parts, like rings of the Olympic logo.Those who pay no federal income taxes are not made up exclusively of those Romney derides as dependent on government and lacking in personal responsibility. They include millions of senior citizens and low-skilled workers who consider themselves neither victims nor entitled to anything.Government benefits are heavily skewed towards seniors, nearly all of whom paid Social Security and Medicare taxes for decades to earn them. Judging by the polls, both they and low-income workers are likely to give Romney respectable levels of support in November, unless they feel he is insulting them or cannot relate to their situation — the issue that turned Romney's remarks white hot. In surreptitiously taped comments at a May fundraising event, leaked Monday by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, Romney plays to his donors' prejudices to sell a message that the Democratic Party is about dependency and the Republican Party is about free enterprise and limited government.About Editorials/Debate
Opinions expressed in USA TODAY's editorials are decided by its Editorial Board, a demographically and ideologically diverse group that is separate from USA TODAY's news staff.
Most editorials are accompanied by an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature that allows readers to reach conclusions based on both sides of an argument rather than just the Editorial Board's point of view.
In reality, the number of people who pay income tax dropped largely because of the recession and tax cuts approved during Republican administrations. And Republicans defend many of the $1 trillion in annual tax expenditures -- deductions, credits and loopholes -- that represent another form of entitlements. But what might be most troubling about Romney's strivers-vs.-moochers formulation is how he unnecessarily personalized a debate that should be about policy. Rather than criticizing a string of laws that has shielded too many adults from the obligation of paying federal income taxes, he disparages the non-payers themselves — apparently for the sin of complying with the law.That presents a rich irony, because Romney has defended his own low tax rates (of 14% on $21.6 million in 2010, much less than the top rate of 35%) by saying that he was fully in compliance with the law, and that Americans should pay only what's required. Inevitably, Romney's comments are being compared to Obama's in 2008, when he was taped saying that some voters not likely to vote for him "cling to their guns or religion." You'd think, after that experience, candidates wouldn't say things at closed fundraisers that they wouldn't say in public. At least Obama knew that he committed a huge gaffe and said he had misspoken. Romney keeps doubling down on his mistake, pushing a kind of resentment politics.If Romney wants to end a psychology of entitlement, here's a better way to start: Propose a detailed tax simplification that strips out giveaways. That would include those that enable his own loophole-ridden rate and a raft of middle-class goodies such as the mortgage interest deduction, in the process of ending the free ride for a chunk of the 47%.The principle should be that everyone above the poverty level should have at least a minimal stake in financing the nation's defense, highways, national parks and other needs -- with the burden distributed in the simplest, fairest, most efficient way possible.Far more important, though, is bringing runaway benefit programs under control. Here Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, have made some constructive proposals. But their arguments would be far more effective if they'd put forth a vision that unites Americans to overcome a common threat rather than playing to stereotypes that divide them.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.