Just Own It Mitt

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:52:51 -0500
democracy, irc, mitt-romney, news, politics, republican-primary, taxes, umbc, usdemocrazy

Poor Mitt Romney. He tries hard to be just a regular guy and is often mocked for it. Like the time he tried to relate to voters’ uncertainty of the job market,

“I know what it’s like to worry about whether you’re going to get fired. There were a couple of times I wondered if I was going to get a pink slip.”

We didn’t know weather to laugh or cringe at this statement coming from a man who makes as much from one speaking engagements than many Americans will make in a year. (Just to give you an idea of how loaded Romney is… according to him, $374,000 a year for speaking fees is “not very much.” In all fairness $374 thousand is small compared to a net worth of $200 million)

But unfortunately for Romney, he handles his wealth with all the grace you would expect from someone with no social skills.

He has tried to delay the release of his taxes until a time when he will have either secured or lost his party’s nomination. It’s a conversation he just doesn’t want to have.

But most embarrassing of all for the Candidate is the revelation of the tax rate millionaire Mitt pays for his meager income. He enjoys a tax rate of 15%, which is about the same rate you would pay if you made $40-50,000 per year.

So what’s the problem here? Other than the Romney campaign’s inability to control the narrative, there is none.

In fact if Romney were to become president he wouldn’t be the wealthiest man to do so. Adjusted for inflation George Washington was worth over 500 million dollars, and John F. Kennedy was worth nearly a billion dollars.

Washington and Kennedy are outliers but millionaires are not strangers to the White House. All but three presidents of the the 20th century were millionaires, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman.

The more Romney demurs, fumbles, stone walls, and stutters through questions about his wealth the more it becomes a talking point. What do you think; does it matter how wealthy a candidate is?