“Whether someone punches you in the nose because they really hate you, or they punch you in the nose because they want to impress people who hate you, you still have a broken goddamn nose.”
Mitt Romney releases 2011 tax returns
Mitt Romney released his 2011 tax return today. Releasing information on a Friday afternoon is traditionally a way to reduce the amount of media exposure.
Trustee Brad Malt writes: In advance of the posting of these new documents, I wanted to provide some top-line details. Regarding the newly-filed 2011 Tax Return:
- In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
- The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.
- The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.
- The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.
The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 could have further reduced their tax obligation for the year. However, the Romneys decided to limit their deduction of charitable contributions so to “fit” the Governor’s statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.
Had the Romney’s actually taken the legal deductions available to them, they would have paid an effective tax rate of 9%.
Now, at a time when Mitt Romney is criticizing Americans for not paying their share of taxes, how would it look for Mitt to only pay 9%?
Yeah, he thought so too. And so, he chose to NOT take a deduction so that his tax rate would be in line with the figure he had previously stated.
By the way – it’s worth noting that even though Mitt Romney paid more than he needed to (about $200,000), he has the right to go back and amend his tax return for three years and take that full tax deduction.
I’m betting that should he lose this election, that’s exactly what he’ll do.
The information was released in a blog post, written by the manager of Romney’s blind trust since 2003, R. Bradford Malt, which said the Romneys had filed their 2011 tax return with the IRS Friday morning. It also indicated that the Romneys’ tax preparer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, would provide a letter summarizing the tax rates that the Romneys paid from 1990 to 2009.
According to Malt, the Romneys paid an average annual effective federal tax rate of 20.2 percent, with the lowest rate coming in at 13.66 percent. Over that same stretch of time, they gave an average of 13.45 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.
“The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor’s statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years,” Malt wrote.
President Obama leads in new poll of swing states
President Obama leads Mitt Romney in a new poll of 12 key swing states. This is the news that counts, kids.
Obama leads 49 percent to 44 percent in the poll from Purple Strategies.
The poll is a combined sample of likely voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, and also shows good news for Obama in over-sampled results for Ohio, Virginia, Florida and Colorado. Last month’s Purple Poll showed Romney with a slight edge in swing states, 47 percent to Obama’s 46 percent.
“One important change in the latest numbers: President Obama now leads among independents,” in the states surveyed, Purple pollsters wrote. It’s the first time Obama has led independent swing-state voters in seven months, the pollsters wrote.
Paul Ryan booed at AARP address
In his remarks to the AARP Friday, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan was booed loudly when he said the “first step to a stronger Medicare is to repeal Obamacare.”
Ryan was unfazed. “I had a feeling there would be mixed reactions, so let me get into it,” he said.
“It weakens Medicare for today’s seniors and puts it at risk for the next generation,” Ryan argued. “First, it funnels $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. Second, it puts 15 unelected bureaucrats in charge of Medicare’s future.”
Ryan’s own budget contains the same cuts to future Medicare spending as the Affordable Care Act, although Mitt Romney has distanced himself from that plan. The bureaucrat reference is to the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, whose members must be approved by the Senate and whose recommendations can be rejected by Congress. Politifact has rated Ryan’s description of the board “mostly false.”
The AARP is a non-partisan organization, but the group supported the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare. Obama appeared before the group earlier in the day (also via satellite) and offered a sharp critique of his Republican rivals’ plans to revamp Medicare, saying it would leave seniors “at the mercy of insurance companies.”
West Wing cast reunites to ‘walk and talk’ non-partisan voting section of the ballot
The cast of the West Wing reunites to walk and talk about why it’s important to vote on the nonpartisan section of the ballot — and why Bridget Mary McCormack should be on the Michigan Supreme Court.
Learn more about Bridget Mary McCormack.
Website: http://j.mp/BridgetVideo
Donate: http://j.mp/QnlIY3
Mitt Romney looking very “tan” on Univision
SRSLY, kids.
How much bronzer does Mitt Romney have to have on to try and relate to the hispanic community?
He knows he’s in trouble with this one segment of the electorate so he tries to look more “tan” so they like him better?
Says a lot of things on a lot of levels.
Pew Poll shows President Obama leading by 8 points
A new Pew Poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by 8 points among Likely Voters: 51%-43%.
Likely Voters is a more accurate measurement of sentiment than Registered Voters.
From Pew Research:
At this stage in the campaign, Barack Obama is in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates. With an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney among likely voters, Obama holds a bigger September lead than the last three candidates who went on to win in November, including Obama four years ago. In elections since 1988, only Bill Clinton, in 1992 and 1996, entered the fall with a larger advantage.
A lot more info from the poll can be found here.
Full Mitt Romney Fundraiser video released
Mother Jones magazine has released the full, unedited video of May 17 fundraiser in which Mitt Romney made some controversial comments about 47 percent of the country, whom he said paid no income taxes and believed themselves “victims.”
At last night’s quickly arranged press conference, Romney asked that whole video be released so Americans could see his comments in full context. So here you go, Mitt.
For now, here is the full video, posted in two parts to YouTube by Mother Jones:
From the Obama Campaign: 47
Conservative David Brooks on Mitt Romney’s video gaffe
Even conservative reporter David Brooks has issues with the recent video footage at a GOP fund raising event:
“The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor. Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.
“The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view — from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There’s no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn’t have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own. The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation.” – David Brooks, in a New York Times essay titled Thurston Howell Romney.