Fomenting class warfare | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Question for Mitt Romney: When you worked at Bain did the company do your taxes or did you take your W-2s, 1099s and whatever other "tax" documents you received to a CPA who prepared your taxes??

    My guess is that it was the latter. If it was the latter, how is it that someone at Bain, or a Bain shareholder, could know just what was in your returns?? Well, that's what Harry claims.

    Do you suppose David Axelrod was able to get to someone at Romney's CPA's office (or worse yet, the IRS) to call Harry Reid and spill the beans about how much tax Romney did or did not pay?? That would be reminiscent of what he is alleged to have done when he got information out of so called "sealed court records" of divorce proceedings of folks who were running against the Anointed One in Chicago when he first entered politics there. Or do you suppose that Ms. Reid's boy, Harry, simply took a page out of the likely long since forgotten play book of Joe McCarthy?? (You would have to be pretty old to remember him. I am and I do.) Hmmm...

    I can only think of two good reasons anyone would want Gov. Romney to reveal ten or twelve years of his tax returns. To show he is rich or to suggest that he cheated on his taxes. Why else would Harry Reid (or his "sponsor" in the anointed One's campaign) be so adamant about it?? That would be Harry Reid , the man with a sterling reputation for honesty who showed up in D.C. poor and now shows between $2 and $6M on his required federal disclosure statement but refuses to make his taxes public. Yeah, right...

    But why would anyone want to show everyone how rich Romney is. ?? We already know he is rich. Could this be no more than an effort to create a rich - poor climate of envy among the American people and add fuel to the class warfare hysteria the Dems seem to be trying to foster?? Or perhaps a strategy based on Saul Alinsky's writings?? Or perhaps the Cloward-Piven philosophy. Surely not Ayn Rand. John Galt, where are you when we need you??

    I would think that if someone's tax return showed up at IRS showing a ton of income and no taxes paid, it would set off bells all over the place (unless it was GE). I know for a fact that the IRS has programs that look at returns and when they see figures that vary from predetermined "norms", the returns are flagged for further scrutiny. We can only wonder what Harry's "source" told him about audits, either "letter" audits or "in person" audits.

    We keep hearing that Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than many middle class taxpayers. That's probably true. But, so what?? The focus on the tax rate paid is nothing more than a red herring. I saw an ad on TV that said that Mitt Romney paid a tax rate of only 14% on his income that was on the order of $20,000,000. It went on to suggest that there was something wrong with that because most of the rest of us pay taxes at a higher rate. Do you suppose that the originator of that ad considers the rest of us as the "unwashed masses" incapable of recognizing sophistry when we see it. Fourteen percent of twenty million is two million eight hundred thousand. That, using the Anointed One's numbers is the amount of tax Mr. Romney paid. Are you sure , Mr. President, that most of us paid more tax than that?? Who among us would not be happy to earn that much in a year (or lifetime)?? Or do you really believe that most of us are too stupid to see through your dishonesty??

    In fact when anyone resorts to using percentages to prove a point, it's usually time to start being very careful. Last night on TV, I heard an individual tell us that the amount of energy coming from wind power has increased by 100% (i.e. doubled) over the last year or two..That sounds like a big deal, until you look at it a little closer. According to Wikipedia, for 2009 and 2010 wind accounted for approximately 2.3% of the electrical power consumed in the U.S. That figure corresponds with the 2.3% reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It's like they say. "Figures don't lie, but...." If you increase a small number (like 1.65%) by 100% you come to 2.3%. If that change was based on entrepreneurial investor financed support, it would be outstanding. As it is, all we see is more and more taxpayer support, with little or no consideration of what things we forego to support the wind subsidies. Likewise the solar subsidies. (Opportunity costs simply don't seem to be in the lexicon of most politicians). The Anointed One likes that stuff. End of conversation. How dare anyone take exception to what the Anointed One wants.

    Has anyone looked at why it is that Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney and a lot of other rich folks very likely pay a lower tax rate than many of their employees. Because they are crooks?? I don't think so. They pay the tax rates that they pay because the IRS Code says that's what you pay on so called capital gains. The demagogues among us would have you believe that folks among us whose income is comprised of a lot of interest and capital income type of income are somehow "gaming" the system so as to pay a low rate of tax. The fact of the matter is that all those folks calculate and pay their taxes in accordance with IRS instructions and it turns out that way. There are those in the administration who would have investment income taxed at "ordinary income" rates as opposed to "capital gains" rates. That would solve Warren Buffet's concern over his secretary paying a higher tax rate than he does. But what do you suppose it would do to people's willingness to risk their money on investments?? Investments which fuel the capitalistic engine.

    What the Anointed One's spear carriers do not tell you (but you may have already noticed) is that they have already taken a fairly substantial bite out of a lot of older folks' interest income by holding the interest rates down. They have done this by printing tons of money. The result of that is that seniors who saved for retirement and accumulated a few dollars which they expected to yield a monthly income during their retirement years have had their hopes and expectations dashed by the Fed. and their so called "Qualitative Easing" programs. But don't worry, they are still looking out for seniors by insisting that nothing be done to Social Security to help preserve it. Sounds good; until you realize that when it runs out of money (in the not very distant future), it will simply be too bad.

    It seems clear. If Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney and all the other rich folks would only pay their fair share....

    D'ya think??
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