Mitt Romney, the 47 percent, and Republican anti-tax orthodoxy

Probably not smirking so much any more. Given the current course of the 2012 presidential campaign, the leak of the following remarks from a private fundraiser may forever be known in political circles as the event that stopped the downward spiral of the Romney campaign, and sent it straight down the drain instead:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what'These are people who pay no income tax.

Romney's first and most obvious problem is the declaration that were he president, he would give absolutely no regard for half of the population. This terrible declaration has predictably allowed the Democratic Party and President Obama's reelection campaign to target groups among the so-called 47 percent that Romney wrote off: full-time students, for instance, or seniors and the disabled on low fixed incomes.

Romney's second major problem is his false premise that anyone who doesn't pay income taxes is inherently a loser and a parasite on society. Near and dear to his heart would be the several thousand millionaires who pay no income taxes. Less near and dear, as evidenced by their exclusion from Romney's keynote at the Republican National Convention, would be active duty military deployed to combat zones, who receive an exemption from paying federal income taxes precisely because they are at risk of sacrificing their lives on behalf of this nation. And somewhere in between would be however many Americans take advantage of the multitude of exemptions written into the tax code to provide incentives for particular economic activity. Just to name a few, the Earned Income Tax Credit, for instance, was specifically designed to exempt lower-income Americans from paying income taxes to provide incentives to get off welfare, and the mortgage interest deduction makes it much more worthwhile to buy real property. And certainly, not everyone who takes advantage of deductions like these to eliminate their federal income tax burden is a worthless parasite on society.

Writing off half the electorate is bad. Characterizing troops in combat zones as leeches is even worse. But perhaps worst of all is the challenge that this new narrative presents to traditional Republican economic orthodoxy.

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