I’m traveling, and my colleagues are hacking away at the returns to explain their meaning. The speedy liberal reaction to them was shock that Romney willfully paid higher taxes in 2011, skiping some deductions, when his charitable donations could have lowered his effective rate to 9 percent. That seems just as likely to have been a mistake or been a trap laid for Romney’s critics — go ahead, attack him for giving more money to the government. […]
Everybody keeps digging for clever in the stupidity of the Romney campaign, but there’s no “trap” here for the people Weigel is calling “liberals”. (Arithmetic is now a “liberal” construct, apparently.) The obvious thing for “liberals” to do is to bring up the months of ridicule that followed the discussion of the Buffett Rule. In fact, Republicans in the House thought the prospect of anyone paying extra taxes was so ridiculous that their Buffet Rule Act hit the House floor on Wednesday:
Current law already allows taxpayers to send money to pay down the debt, but Republicans said that process is onerous. Under their new plan, taxpayers would have an easy option on their tax returns allowing them to pay more.
Under Republicans’ legislation, the money would go directly toward reducing the debt.
Since nobody’s going to object to letting anyone voluntarily pay more taxes, the law passed in a voice vote of Democrats and Republicans, but the whole thing is part of months of Republican rhetoric designed to make Warren Buffett look like an effete, clueless rich asshole who can pay extra taxes if he’s dumb enough to do it. The subtext of the new law, and hours of Fox News yammer, is that no rich person would ever be stupid enough to pay extra taxes if they could avoid it.
Three days later, Romney put the lie to that notion. The only person in America stupid enough to do what Warren Buffett wouldn’t is running for President on the Republican ticket. There’s no top secret, cats’ paw, double back somersault flying ten dimensional fuck embedded in the latest emission from the Romney campaign–it’s just another failure from the most incompetent Presidential campaign of the modern era.
chopper
That and the fact that Willard stated that paying more than he was legally required to would have made him unfit for the presidency. This dude is playing 1 dimensional checkers. And he still accidentally choked on the piece somehow.
Baud
Romney didn’t give money to the government. He gave the government an interest-free loan until such time as Romney can file an amended return.
scav
@chopper: It is so very very obvious, and Repub pundits lives’ are so very very much easier if they just sort of completely ignore their candidate and anything that ever came out of his mouth. (GWB too, so that’s eventually going to be a very long sort of amnesia they’re going to have to paper over somehow.)
Napoleon
@Baud:
I am amazed that someone in a comment thread is the first person to point that out. His return is pure BS and will be amended mid-Novemeber.
Steeplejack
@Mistermix:
It’s Buffett, not Buffet.
Dennis
@Baud:
Anyone can file an amended tax return, Baud. You can. I can. Mitt Romney can. Barack Obama can. Every US taxpayer can.
Going back 3 years since you filed, or two years that you paid. If you think you stiffed yourself on what you deducted from AGI on what you gave to charity last year because you realized you didn’t include a big bundle of clothes you drove in to Goodwill that one Saturday a year ago this fall, that qualifies for an amended return. As US taxpayers, we’re afforded that option, just like Mitt Romney. Barack Obama could do the same thing.
Gin & Tonic
@Napoleon: First person? No disrespect to Baud, but that’s been the dominant meme since about five minutes after his returns hit the internets yesterday. When he loses, he files that amended return and has no obligation, legal or implied, to share it with you.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: I dunno, I like the Buffet Rule better. I’m hungry.
Napoleon
@Gin & Tonic:
then somehow I had not ran into it until now.
General Stuck
This should be obvious by now. Romney is the ultimate in seat pants flying political campaigning. His idea of a good day is not getting caught in his lies, to then claim he is telling the truth.
Andrew
Totally disagree about the obvious thing for us liberals to bring up.
The obvious point is that this tax filing is a sham for the masses. As soon as the election is over — whether Romney wins or loses — he is free to go back and amend his return to claim the full charitable deduction.
Why wouldn’t he do that once the spotlight is off his tax returns, and especially if he loses? It would be utterly irrational for him not to do so.
BruceFromOhio
@Steeplejack @Gin & Tonic: Its not even 10am ET yet, and I’m already thinking margaritas.
tofubo
“The speedy liberal reaction to them was shock that Romney willfully paid higher taxes in 2011, skiping some deductions, when his charitable donations could have lowered his effective rate to 9 percent”
from his own mouth, he is not qualified
anibundel
@Baud: and win or lose, $20 says that amended tax return is filed Nov 7th.
Paul
This morning I have read comments defending Romney’s tax rates on other forums. This means we either have an amazing number of millionaires in this country that comments on forums, or an astonishing number of middle class people who for whatever reason loves to pay more in taxes than people like Romney.
Nothing will change until most of those folks in the middle class stop enabling/voting for the GOP.
Baud
@Paul:
We have an amazing number of millionaires who will donate to shady organizations who will pay people looking for work cash money to troll website forums.
HRA
It certainly cannot be said or spread enough what the game is in Romney overpaying in his taxes. It brings the question of what is in his earlier returns by using this tactic. Basically it seems as if he counts on the populace being too dumb to understand his supreme intelligence and it makes me angry, tired and wanting this charade of his to be over quickly.
GOTV
Susan S
I am disappointed that the more glaring item is totally overlooked..that Romney and all others living off capital gains pay no Medicare tax on that income. I believe the new healthcare act changes that..but for now, every high paid attorney or surgeon pays full Medicare taxes on all earned income, before deductions. Hedge fund managers pay zilch. And one more this-drives-me-mad note..if Romney dies, his wife gets full SocSecurity benefits..you and I help pay for that too.
Svensker
@anibundel:
Didn’t you mean $10,000?
eemom
@chopper:
Splendiforous.
Xecky Gilchrist
The speedy liberal reaction to them was shock that Romney willfully paid higher taxes in 2011
For this liberal, it was more that – even if what the campaign published were true – the percentage is STILL really tiny.
SiubhanDuinne
You may think you’re snarking, but seven or eight threads down, in a discussion of charter schools, someone mentioned A Beka Book (Christianist textbooks for charter and home schooling). Here’s the company’s description of their math texts:
Dennis SGMM
First Mate: Captain, we’re taking on water with every swell!
Captain Romney: There’s only one thing to do: we’ll lash ourselves to the anchor!
BGinCHI
Yeah, Weigel, the Romney campaign laid a trap for liberals who have been wondering about his massive tax avoidance and lying about his returns. Because the subject ought to be traps and pratfalls and these little diversions instead of the hugely important subject of integrity.
Does People Magazine train all reporters now?
burnspbesq
@Baud:
Actually, no. Interest is paid on overpayments.
aimai
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fred Clark over at slactivist had a link up to a blog post about how the Christian Right thinks that “set theory” is religiously divisive and satanically inspired. It was quite fascinating.
aimai
BGinCHI
@Dennis SGMM: You get to Matterhorn yet?
burnspbesq
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Exactly. That’s the real issue: that Romney can pay an effective tax rate in the teens without cheating.
redshirt
LOL. “It’s a trap!”
Ah, except it’s not. These fools can’t think one step behind, let alone ahead.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@aimai:
File that under things I really didn’t want to know. I can sort of understand the 6,000 year old universe and Jesus riding the dinosaur, but how the hell does math have anything to do with religion? Or Satan?
No, don’t tell me. Really, I don’t want to know.
RaflW
@Paul:
“Nothing will change until most of those folks in the middle class stop enabling/voting for the GOP.”
Or at least until these people figure out that they’ll never run hedge funds and thus never get the absurd ‘carried interest’ loophole. Heck, many in the middle class probably only have very modest – if any- capital gains taxes at 10 or 15%.
If they’re in the market, it’s almost certainly in tax-sheltered 401(k) or tax deferred IRAs. Maybe a Roth here or there.
I think the idea of upward mobility is lovely, and I don’t want to piss on it. But we’re less upwardly mobile than much of Europe now, for gods sake.
It’s too esoteric an argument for mass politics, but when Romney sputters about Obama wanting us to be Europe, I sure would like to be able to point that out.
Baud
@burnspbesq:
That was my point. The government keeps Romney’s money until Romney files an amended return and then the government has to refund it (without paying interest to Romney).Sorry, I misread your post. I didn’t realize interest was paid. Thanks!
Petorado
Come on Weigel. You see nobility in something the rest of the world can tell is blatant Republican ass-covering? Romney desperately tries to avoid the shitstorm that would ensue paying a single digit tax rate on the millions he gets for doing nothing? I can’t tell if these guys pity Romney’s faltering campaign or their own loss of the horse race narrative more.
scav
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Well, if they want to go all real old-timey ree-ligious, they should drop the use of Arabic / Indian (Muslims! Heathen Idol Worshipers!) numbers altogether, especially that suspect “Zero” concept and sit down to a set of Pious Long Division in Roman numerals.
Chyron HR
Yes, liberals, your downfall started when Paul Ryan walked into Mitt’s office and said, “My lord, I believe I have a cunning plan…”
LanceThruster
@chopper:
Imagine the consequences if there were pretzels about. Or is that only life threatening if spirits and libations are involved?
BGinCHI
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: See Pin, Angels Dancing on the Head of.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought about tossing in the almost obligatory joke but thought it would be piling on.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai: Amazing. I’ll go seek it out. Should be amusing reading matter over my coffee and bagel.
RaflW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, that’s a relief. I hope they’re not burdened with combinatorics, discrete math, algorithms, really anything that might lead these folks into computer sciences.
If Christianists want to self-select into Chic-Fil-A careers, I’m not gonna complain.
Steeplejack
@BruceFromOhio:
A margarita buffet could be a cash cow at brunch for a restaurant. Also a lawsuit magnet. “Overserved diner mows down crowd leaving parking lot.”
Baud
@aimai:
Mathematics is a well-known gateway to illicit homosexual behavior.
Villago Delenda Est
@General Stuck:
His problem is he NEVER has good days, even by that standard.
FlipYrWhig
I love how Weigel thinks it’s probably just a mistake. Like a multimillionaire with a phalanx of tax professionals at his beck and call just somehow goofed-cute, the way Megan McCardle would.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: You can’t get any more divisive than division. That must be satanic too!
Villago Delenda Est
Seeing how aimai posted about the evils of set theory, I’ll include this link about the Theory of Revolution.
aimai
Here’s a link to the set theory piece. Its really worth reading.
Paul
@RaflW:
Even if we are more upwardly than Europe, rich people can EASILY afford to pay twice/three times the tax rate that Romney pays. So, even if you one day think you will be a millionaire, paying 30% will still allow you to do really well.
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est:
That is hysterical.
aimai
Paul
@Baud:
Suggested book reading: “What’s the matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank
Skippy-san
“The only person in America stupid enough to do what Warren Buffett wouldn’t is running for President on the Republican ticket. “
True that.
Mnemosyne
This kind of thing made me realize what conservatives really are — freeloaders. They sneer that if liberals want things like, oh, fire protection or pothole-free streets, liberals can pay for them without dragging innocent conservatives into it … and then, of course, conservatives get to have the benefits of fire protection and pothole-free streets without having to pay any money to get them.
This is why they’re so obsessed with “moochers” and “freeloaders” — good ol’ conservative projection.
aimai
@Baud:
There was a recent article somewhere about a guy who was making a very good living farming out “reviewing” work to other people on the internet. If there’s that much money paying third parties to give good reviews to books and products there must be ten times more good money paying people to troll blogs. The ROI for the billionaire class from low level ratfucking to high level lobbying for tax breaks is simply unimaginably huge.
Dennis SGMM
@BGinCHI:
Matterhorn is on my Kindle. It is slow going because it occasionally reminds me of something that I’d prefer to forget.
It is also comforting; it’s a comfort to know that there are others who know what it was like and who can write well about it.
It is a great book. To me it is just as evocative of the Vietnam experience as Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
Thank you very, very much for putting such an excellent and cathartic book in front of me.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
This is why I refer to Rmoney as a parasite. He more than has the means to help pay for the very infrastructure that makes his wealth possible, but he doesn’t want to pay for it.
I noticed something working at a local telco. Wealthy customers had this notion that they were ENTITLED to discounts and special deals for premium services (one customer wanted a data T1 to their McMansion) because, well, they’re rich! Unlike normal customers who simply pay the bills for services rendered without complaint.
Monala
Mojo breaks down Romney’s taxes: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/mitt-romney-tax-returns
Yutsano
@Baud: A lot of our maths come from heathen Greeks and Muslims too.
NonyNony
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
I’m gonna tell you anyway, because I’m that kind of grump.
It’s because they hate Georg Cantor and his theorem about infinite sets that leads to different kinds of “infinities”. The Bible says that only God is infinite and so ipso facto Georg Cantor was a tool of Satan. Set mathematics was designed by the Devil to mislead people down into the dark paths of agnosticism, atheism and secular humanism – The Church of Satan in other words.
arguingwithsignposts
@Petorado:
Despite the front-page love for Weigel, he’s as conservative/libtard as the rest of them. He said he had great admiration for Dick Armey. He just happens to hang with all the juicebox mafia in the village.
Hill Dweller
Keep in mind, when Willard was running for Governor in Massachusetts, he attacked his opponent because her husband wouldn’t release his taxes.
Romney is a soulless man willing to say or do anything if he thinks it will benefit him.
WereBear
@NonyNony: That branch of Christianity continues to be about ways of not-thinking.
We’re dealing with a “business” class who have cheated so long they think that is how it is done. Coming up with new products and processes, or even supplying good products and customer service, does not reap the huge profits that come from lying, cheating, and stealing.
gocart mozart
The answer is simple. If he took the full charitable deduction (the charity was the Mormon church) his tax rate would have been 9 point something per cent which would have been fodder for democrats because he swore that he never paid less than 13%. By paying more than he needed, he has decided to go with the lesser of the two lies. The “If I paid more than I was required , I would be too stupid to be president” lie.
gocart mozart
@burnspbesq:
Actually, in the single digits even.
[said in snagglepuss voice]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuFRCxBfPH0
Gindy53
@Paul: Or the word got out in the wards to support the Mormon candidate.
Randy P
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: The author was probably brought up in “new math”, and I remember that set theory was introduced right from Grade 1. Personally, I took to it like a duck to water, but I’ve always been a math geek. Other students probably considered it the subject from hell.
And this author took that literally.
Joel
The “clever” here is that the subject shifts slightly from the 47% comment – far more important and politically valuable – and to the meaningless assertion that Romney “overpaid” his taxes and “disqualified” himself. Both of those comments came straight from Romney himself!
Or as stated above:
“The obvious point is that this tax filing is a sham for the masses. As soon as the election is over—whether Romney wins or loses—he is free to go back and amend his return to claim the full charitable deduction.”
Don’t get caught looking at the motherfucking squirrels. We have bigger fish to fry and bigger things to shiv.
El Cid
@aimai: Long division is a tool got up by the Progressives to keep us Real Americans apart, based on identity politics, because they’d like nothing better than a=a.
Bago
@SiubhanDuinne: @SiubhanDuinne: The set theory objection is as follows.
God is infinite.
With sets you can recursively and algorithmicly define sets, meaning you can have multiple infinities.
Having more infinities than god is blasphemy, ergo the maths are bad.
El Cid
@Bago: Who restricted God to only one infinity?
I mean, if you’re going to have a concept of a Supreme Being who’s bigger and smarter and older and more powerful than anything, why suddenly get ‘logical’ and impose any limits?
Why not just say ‘okay but God is every infinity you’ve got to the power of God,’ or whatever else?
Why suddenly turn all pseudo-rational?
Steeplejack
@gocart mozart:
I was struck by an odd similarity between Snagglepuss’s voice and that of the guy who did the honey badger video. Weird! Strange, even.
dance around in your bones
@El Cid: Because we are but puny humans who cannot comprehend the awesomeness of Gawd.
Even though he gave us brains and free will and all that shit.
Tractarian
Weigel is just a typical contrarian Slate pseudo-liberal, in league with people like Will Saletan and Jacob Weisberg. These are “Lieberman Democrats.”
As this preposterous sentence makes clear…
…Weigel is simply not worth your time to read.
Jay in Oregon
@aimai:
From the article:
If that commenter was speaking in Farsi, Geraldo Rivera would have another data point for his “Muslims are savages” hobbyhorse.
But it was (presumably) an American fundamentalist Christian, so bygones.
Chris
@Paul:
There’s a pretty big quantity of middle class people who worship the rich because they either want to be like them or because they really believe that worshiping them will make them throw scraps from the table of power your way. (It’s no dumber than tribesmen five thousand years ago making offerings to the gods to make the harvest work out or the winter less harsh. The more things change…)
Chris
@RaflW:
The interesting thing is that while America is pretty much dead last in the entire developed world when it comes to social mobility, Americans when polled are more optimistic about their prospects for moving upwards than people in most other countries.
Makes sense. Europeans perceive inequality and therefore a need to combat it; Americans don’t perceive such a need, therefore they let the system go to rot.
Jay in Oregon
@Chris:
Those would be the “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
Chris T.
@burnspbesq:
Moreover, it’s worth noting that this interest is currently higher than that achievable with other “safe” deposit institutions (such as banks and money markets and certificates of deposit). Currently (today, September 2012) you can earn 3% on your money by “lending” it to the IRS this way. The highest achievable one-year CD rate today (again September 2012) is below 2%.
So, Rmoney is eking out an extra 1% by not taking the deduction today, and taking it instead next year.
Chris T.
BTW a few more additional notes: (1) Some corporations are taking advantage of this by deliberately overpaying their taxes to get the 1%+ spread back. And, (2) this shows that Rmoney is not actually stupid, he’s doing the overpayment as a two-fer to keep his “13%” lie alive and to gain a bit of money in the process. He’s not stupid, he’s just greedier than he is smart.
xian
@Tractarian: no, Weigel is a libertardian conservative, but something of a future-Brooks like liberal-whisperer.
WereBear
@Chris: You mean they are esCargo Cults?
Cranky Observer
= = = = = = Current law already allows taxpayers to send money to pay down the debt, but Republicans said that process is onerous. = = = = = =
“Onerous”? You send a check to Department of the Public Debt. The address is listed in the front of every IRS tax instruction book, available on-line or at your library. What exactly is the “onerous” part?
Cranky
Got it – since the 1% doesn’t pay taxes, they have never had to _read_ an IRS tax instruction book.
Matt McIrvin
The set-theory thing is just an echo of a largely expired cultural battle: it was part of the New Math, which conservatives identify as one of the crazy hippie educational reforms of the Sixties. I don’t think there’s anything more to it than that.
If you don’t get it, it’s because there’s nothing to get absent the historical context.
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid: Georg Cantor was actually something of a religious mystic and identified God with the Absolute Infinite, the imagined infinity above all infinities.
pseudonymous in nc
@Paul:
There are an awful lot of willing serfs in the GOP base.
And once again, one luxury of the rich is that they basically get to pick their tax rate.
ankh hotep
Overlooked in this discussion of Romney’s taxes is a fact long forgotten to history, i.e., during the 1976 presidential campaign it was revealed that candidate Jimmy Carter paid more in tax than required. He was eligible for so many deductions with the family peanut farm that no tax was due for his most recent return. Carter paid some amount of tax anyway and said that everyone should pay something. But since the Gooperpedia has Carter down as the worst president in modern history, the predictable Republican response would be to sneer at anyone who would think like him today.