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In Mitt Romney’s videoed “Boca Moment” in a Boca Raton mansion, he candidly revealed his nasty little inner-millionaire.
Glibly disparaging 47 percent of his fellow Americans “Who don’t pay income taxes,” Romney chided them as moochers who’re living the Life of Riley on Social Security, Medicare, and other government benefits. “My job,” Mitt assured his audience of fellow millionaires in the mansion, “is not to worry about those people.” Indeed, “those” people are now deemed “The Takers” by the right-wing corporate class, while the Mitts among us naturally consider themselves “The Makers.”
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That’s a convenient construct by the 1%, invented to rationalize their grabbing of 90 percent of the nation’s income gains. But it’s a plutocratic fantasy. The big takers, by far, are the Mittites – the corporate barons and private equity hucksters at the pinnacle of the income pyramid. They don’t merely take a hundred bucks or so a month in food stamps to help make ends meet; each of them can milk the tax code and sup at the subsidy trough for millions of dollars in annual government largesse.
We saw this in action recently when Romney begrudgingly released a second year of his tax returns. Heavily obscured and manicured by his political henchmen, the amended filing shows that the privileged class is allowed to dodge its tax obligation to America by using loopholes and back-alley routes that subsidize their wealth. “Structured income,” “trust shifting,” “estate planning,” “offshore havens,” and other tricks are not even known about by regular citizens, much less available to them. This outlandish government largess is reserved exclusively for the very, very rich.
These plutocratic welfare takers, living in glass mansions, should not be throwing rocks at the rest of us.
“Mr. Romney’s Government Handout,” The New York Times, October 2, 2012.
“Disdain For Workers,” The New York Times, September 21, 2012.
“Why Let the Rich Hoard All the Toys?” The New York Times, October 4, 2012.