I'd say more than 47% lol

Half of that 47% are working families who make less than $30k ... therefore pay no taxes. 1.3% have low capital gains rates and tax breaks that wash it out, yet pay no taxes. Another significant amount are members of our military, deployed in combat zones...therefore pay no taxes. There are 4000 households in the US that made more than $1 million, yet did NOT pay a single penny in taxes. Not, that is irresponsible! Not only are you depending on tax payers for you schools, roads and gov't ... you're capable of chipping in but yet you do not.

If it is 47%, and Obama wins reelection, the taxpayers in this country will be in for a generations-long uphill battle of weaning those people back off the dole.

November is our last stand, because if the Democrats are in power, more people will be on assistance by 2016, and if they can get those beholden to them to vote in strong numbers, they will remain in power for a long time.

Don't let this happen!

It is possible that what he was thinking was correct – there are too many people dependent on government and many if not most, will vote for Obama.

But what came out of his mouth was wrong and stupid. Politicians have said wrong and stupid things before. I hope this is not a fatal blow.

I’m still with Mitt. I think he can right this ship.

I find it very interesting that the first ad at the top of this page is to donate to Obama's campaign. I've refreshed and reopened the link several times, different picture, still same ad. Romney is correct. The people that are dependent on government will be made to believe this assistance will be stopped if he is elected President. That is what the Democrats do, instill fear. Remember the ad of being pushed off a cliff? So, it stands to reason that they will support or side with Obama, they seem him as the only option to have continued financial support. This perception is incorrect. Obama may continue the support, but it will come with a very hefty price. That is what must be articulated and understood. The better choice is to grow our economy and get people back to work. God help us save this country.

UglyHat, it is in fact troubling that we have nearly 47% of households getting by on what the other 53% is ponying up. But, the assertion that "47 percent of Americans believe they are victims, are dependent on the government and will never vote for him." is just so far out of touch. He's using scare tactics to suggest the same 47% are living off of social welfare. We spend approx. 3% of our federal budget on social welfare programs. We can certainly handle taking care of our disabled, retired and poor. The problem is not the 47%. The problems are defense spending, financial regulations, lack of tax reform and out of touch leadership. By the way, research by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation showed that in 2008, the states with the highest percentages of tax filers who did not pay federal income taxes were Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, New Mexico, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, and Texas. Obama won Florida and New Mexico but lost the other eight. So much for the "irresponsible" 47% voting for Obama.

Is Romney his own Joe Biden?

Carolyn, Just who do you believe are the people that are dependent on government? What makes you believe they will support Obama? The data that Paul cites above would suggest that many, if not the majority, of the people who are dependent on government are living in red states and are likely to be voting for Republicans.

Do you have any data that supports another conclusion?

It is absolute horse dung to say 47% of these people pay no taxes.

One thing that gets lost in all this is that the Earned Income Tax Credit - signed into law by Ronald Reagan allows the working poor to not pay Federal Income Taxes. The purpose of this law was to make work more attractive then being on the dole. These same working poor still pay Social Security, Medicare, state, local and property taxes.

The other thing everyone also forgets that almost all of us who think we are not on the Federal leash get all sorts of federal benefits in the form of tax credits that allow us to deduct mortgage interest, local property taxes, educational expenses. We get benefits in the form of aid for infrastructure (roads and bridges), subsidized student loans and on and on and on.

The very wealthy can take advantage of all sorts of tax policies to avoid taxes - like Carried Interest. It seems to me that these people would also fall under the definition of being "takers" - Mitt Romney included.

I agree with Uglyhat!!! I think too many people are dependent on government. People need to take care of their own! With exception, that being the really disable, elderly and of course our military. I think that also have anyone that is receiving government benefits pass a drug test as well as being citizen of the US.

Least we forget that Romney comes from a different world than the rest of us. He doesn't know what it is like to come from humble means and struggle to build a better life for yourself. Whether you're democratic or republican the fact is that this person clearly looks at those who are less fortunate with disdain. He thinks like a Corporation we're all just numbers on a spread sheet and it's all about the bottom line increasing the numbers. You can't run a Country like a Corporation. He scares me, he totally identifies with the top 1%.. Not to mention every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it. Are the elderly included in the 47%? Those who have worked hard their whole life and paid all their taxes and deserve a break. Let's face it a $2,000 a year tax increase on middle class families is a lot of money to those in that bracket. That $2,000 is nothing to the top 1% who spend more on shoes. So so easy to hit those at the lower end of the scale who have little power and are more vulnerable. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. It's the like's of Romney who shipped all our jobs overseas and would rather have everything made in China so, that their investment portfolio returns are enormous.

If it's fun and easy and fashionable to demonize the rich -why is it acceptable and fine to fawn over the over the top Hollywood and Entertainment world rich???? That's a pet peeve. I am tired of the Hollywood Washington Axis. But really, if someone was clever and worked hard to get where they are, whats so bad about that? Should they be denmoized, or is the Horatio Ager story never again to be celebrated?????? nic066

Read his biography. He got 3 deferments during the Vietnam war. 1 for his freshman year at Stanford( my guess is he flunked out). 2nd for 30 months as a missionary in France. While in France he rallied in favor of the war, so while his peers were dying in Vietnam, he was cheering them on in France. 3rd deferment for attending BYU. Once graduated, his draft number was so high, he was virtually guareented not to serve.
During his recent rant, did he stop to consider the working staff at the event. The people cooking his food, serving him, mixing his drinks and cleaning up his mess were all probably part of the 47%. They probably don't make enough money to pay income tax. And they are serving him. So even though this was a "private" event he proceeded to diss the entire working staff, and he doesn't care, cause thats not his job.
He is the poster child for the uber-rich elite. It is all about him. The concept of shared prosperity and shared sacrifice is totally foreign to him. He really does not care about you, your friends, your family. All he cares about is winning the presidency, and if that means writing off 47% of the citizenry, no problem, he doesn't care....and never will.Read his biography....he's a climber, and he will climb over you if he has to.

There's nothing wrong with those who have achieved the American dream but, there is something wrong when the People's Presidential Candidate does not value those working hard to achieve the same dream. The 47% referred to was not a reference to those purely on welfare it was a reference that included those whose tax is deducted through payroll and receiving tax deductions. Romney paid 14% tax on his $20 million last year. How much did you pay? Is it fair that those struggling to raise a family on $60K pay roughly 30%? If you're happy with that well buckle up because in Romney world less Gov. means more privatization which means slice and dice. How can we do this cheaper? Let's hand over control (outsource) per example.. all the money in social security to Wall Street Money Managers get rid of all the overhead involved in Gov. managing these funds and lay all these people off and pretty soon you'll be talking to someone in China, India or Brazil. You'll end up paying fee's out of your social security. Same will happen with medicaid, etc. Who knows schools might be privatized. Ultimately, more money out of your pocket. Where will all these jobs go? Do you think the money managers will hire more people? No, they'll do what we've all been dealing with during mergers and acquisitions....one person now doing 2 jobs.

I'm not happy with where we are right now but, are we in a better place than 4 years ago...Yes. Sometimes, the devil you know is better and Romney is in my opinion a loose canon. For the People by the People... Well, maybe 'not all the People'.

What about when the wealthy make a purchase?

Do their property taxes on multi-million dollar homes equate to more than a middle class family puts into the system? For example: someone living in a $1.5M (assessed value) home in Southborough chips in $24,210/yr. How much property tax does a middle class home renter pay into that pool.....?

How about vehicle purchases? If you own a $70,000 car, you put $4375 into the coffers, just on the initial sale, not counting your excise tax bill, which is $1575 in the 1st model year of your vehicle.

Again, the liberal media loves to make it sound like the wealthy aren't paying in anything at all, but they really are.

Obama doesn't want you to know that though, because he wants more of their money to "take care of" those that vote for him.

Newsmax, 3/20/12, published an article entitled Pelosi's Daughter Enrages Left with Welfare Video". The people Pelosi interviewed at a welfare offiiceon New York City's 14th St. were quoted as saying, "They don't want a job because Barack gives me stuff and because he is black." This is one example.Others have happened in Democratic controlled. Romney is right. He states what others are afraid to say publicly.

Charles – You said “Romney paid 14% tax on his $20 million last year.” If my math is correct, Romney paid $2,800,000; that’s $2.8M. I paid a lot, but it was way less than $2.8M.

You also said “Is it fair that those struggling to raise a family on $60K pay roughly 30%?” Again if I do the math, that family would pay $18,000.

So Romney pays $2.8M in taxes for roughly the same services from the govt that the family pays $18,000 for (maybe we shouldn't expect the govt to do so much for us, so we all can have our taxes reduced). No, I don’t think that’s fair to Romney. Really, we all pay too much in taxes, which gives the govt way too much power and control over its citizens.

A majority of the 47% that Mitt dumped on will vote for him. This is the part of the script nobody wants to talk about.

Easy solution, Mitt, just release tax returns prior to 2010. Whats the harm ?
Were you in the 0% bracket for any of those years ? Could be quite embarrassing.
I don't have any issue with Mitt using the tax code to his advantage, but somehow if someone else finds a way to use the tax code to get into the 0% bracket, they are victims, freeloaders, and feel they are entitled. Lets see, working families who have mortgages, health costs, child care, elderly care. and maybe find a miracle way to fund their IRA by eating crackers and peanut butter, with enough deductions they pay zero income tax, legally.
And BTW, Mitt had no salary, wages etc. in 2010. So he paid no Soc Sec tax, No medicare, no payroll taxes. Hope us freeloaders can someday achieve the same status and complain that our taxes are too high.

I heard an interesting statistic today. In the year that the last Republican president took office, working American wages increased by an almost insignificant .6% (that's six TENTHS of one percent), while executive wages increased by 16% (SIXTEEN percent). Are we or are we not all in this together? Do we or do we not share in the ups AND downs of the economy? Not so much, under the last Republican regime.

Obama 2012--the only hope for working Americans.

Without stating where my leanings in the campaign lie, I have to feel that this 47% comment is such an easy target that any candidate that has this type of ammunition to use against them just has to live with it. In a close race, this can be a deal-breaker...

Our salaries are taxed at a much higher rate than the investment income. For example, tax rate on $50k salary...26%, tax rate on $50k inheritance from parents ... 24%, tax rate on $50k from Megabucks - 25%, capital gains ... 15%!

If I make a million in salary ... 35% ... a million in the stock market ... 15%.

Chris L.-- I stopped reading FindBalance's pompous but inane posts some time ago--but I was holding out for you. Now, EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE--politics, those comfortable stereotypes that make it easy for you to pretend you KNOW a person if you track down their job or their credentials--ALL THAT ASIDE, is it likely--is it conceivable--that I would discuss the details of my taxes with a person known to me as Chris L? Get real!!!!

I heard an interesting statistic yesterday. In the year that the last Republican president took office, working American wages increased by an almost insignificant .6% (that's six TENTHS of one percent), while executive wages increased by 16% (SIXTEEN percent). Are we or are we not all in this together? Do we or do we not share in the ups AND downs of the economy? Not so much, under the last Republican regime.

Obama 2012--the only hope for working Americans.

Thank you David !! Keeping it to the facts that really matter. If I didn't know better FindBalance sounds awfully like Scott Brown.

Thanks Charles! It's only recently that I started to notice the correlation between personal attacks and anonymous posters--the latter are most often guilty of the former, you will find. There are honorable exceptions (UglyHat, for example, who doesn't use his anonymity as a weird sort of cover for personal attacks). How anyone can respond to my saying that I heard a statistic about the economy, the fact that, in 2003, working American wages increased by an almost insignificant .6% (that's six TENTHS of one percent), while executive wages increased by 16% (SIXTEEN percent), with a personal inquiry into my taxes or some other personal attack is, to me (a self-avowed academic), downright bizarre. By the way, the statistic comes from the book Meet You In Hell, by Les Standiford, a fascinating account of the lifelong association between American business titans Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie. That's another thing a lot of the anonymous posters don't believe in--referencing or backing up their claims, many of which will consequently strike readers as invented--so why read them?

What has always confused me is the concept that lower taxes would lead to more jobs. After 12 years of "Bush tax cuts" we are still dealing with an 8percent unemployment rate. I'm in favor of aflat tax on all income and investment

And one more thing that I found topical in the book about Frick and Carnegie--two capitalists who certainly helped to create the way we define capitalism in this country (with both the good and the bad connotations the term suggests) today. When he was still very poor, Andrew Carnegie began to build his fortune by borrowing five hundred dollars. That's right, it was wise borrowing that ultimately led to the creation of unprecedented riches. (I know from elsewhere that the same can be said of other famous fortunes: the Rothschild wealth, for example). President Clinton understood this concept very well--borrowing in order to create jobs, to create the conditions and the opportunity (yes, through social programs, education, new technologies which are only thinkable if the money goes into creating them) to SOLVE economic problems. Lowering taxes on the richest dippers into the communal wealth has failed over and over again to create jobs or help to balance the budget. Bill Clinton was able to do both because he knew how to borrow wisely.

David!

Did you catch Ann Romney on Iowa Radio?
Referring to the criticism hubby has taken, she said:

"Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,"

Comments from The Atlantic including a link to the audio is here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/ann-romney-its-hard/262709/

From The Atlantic article:
"Running for president is hard, but there is one thing harder. That's what happens if you win."
"True as it might have been, Mrs. Romney's "break" was also sad and damaging. Self-pity is doom for candidates."

But I agree with Ann: Mitt should stop being his own Joe Biden. (I'm stealing that line from someone else -- can't find it now).

David - I'm convinced that Find balance is Westboro Jimmy. If you were able to read FB's posts, you would notice the same themes & arrogance as Westboro Jimmy. The serial posting on this blog is his trademark. His current Westboro blog bottomed out at less than 100 posts so he must be feeling neglected and came here under a fraudulent name. On his Westboro blog, he repeatedly blew his own horn saying he posted his name and his photo and what a brave & noble soul he was and now he's a fraud.
I was reading the FB stuff and was sensing some similarity to other posts but couldn't pin it down. Then you called FB pompous and the light bulb came on. We'll have to watch for his next fraudulent name.
You probably didn't see it, but Westboro Jimmy has twice used his blog to shill for a book he published. He once crowed about having a blog with 300 posts without mentioning that half of those were his own posts. He imagines that he has legions (he actually said 'hundreds') of followers who are unenrolled/independent voters who follow his blog closely but are unwilling to post because some liberal 'would call them something ending in 'ist'."
Perhaps you and I should assume fraudulent names (and photos) and post to his Westboro blog pretending to be sympathetic to his positon. The best comment I saw on his blog was a friend of his telling Jimmy that it was time for him to go back to work.
Find balance = Westboro Jimmy. Let's send him a teddy bear so he won't be lonely.

A couple of points. Several of us have pushed for some time for Patch to require the use of real, verifiable, names. Unlike most publications of their kind, they are actually going in the other direction. Remember folks, they make money on clicks. Now as to academics and real people, I was an academic for many years and probably spent thousands of hours working with schools, families in urban communities, etc.in several countries (oh and Chris, have several books and many articles in academic and even corporate publications) I find it deliciously ironic that Obama, a community involved organizer, is damned because he was interested in Saul Alinsky (who influenced people and had friends across a broad spectrum), but Romney, who wouldn't know a working class person from a giraffe and puts many in his wonderful 47%, where I suspect I am as a a retired Independent drawing social security, gets a pass. I think literate comments here are welcome regardless of educational level and I do respect people like Jim H, David, Andy and others who do use their names and are willing to be on the line for whatever mud gets flung at them.

It occurs to me that there is a huge downside to Obama to winning in November.

We would have to endure FOUR MORE YEARS of Romney running for President.

Perhaps he could guest host on "Dirty Jobs" and get acquainted with some of the 47%.

Oh Linda, you are discounting the wonderful entertainment of watching Romney's party come apart at the seams. Though if you were to read Peggy Noonan, the editor of the Nat Review, Joe Scarborough, and a host of GOP gurus, pundits and office holders the appetizers are already on the table and the knives are being sharpened some more. As for Romney, he'll be another Tom Dewey and be lucky if he can sit on his Wolfeboro dock.

I have read Noonan and Scarborough. On Thursday, Noonan said she was just being polite when she said Romney's campaign was "incompetent" -- what she meant to say was that it was a "rolling calamity". I have also heard of several Republicans who are up for re-election, including Brown, running swiftly away from Romney's 47%. Indeed, the knives are being sharpened. I might worry, however, that Romney would buy the whole damn lake & privatize it.

But there is also some regret here. I do not want to see the Republican party vaporized. We need two parties, if not three. There are some good people who happen to be Republicans. I don't agree with their politics but I do hope some of them can resurrect the party -- or start their own -- and be free of the extremists.

Hillary in 2016 !!!!

Linda, here is the best single piece I have read from a conservative critic:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-a-republican-mind-set-without-promise/2012/09/20/798901f8-0344-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html

I don't know where the talent is. There are folks who wish Brown was in another state, but after his character attacks on Warren the other night I think he is just another sad story of a good person having too much conservative gas. Or whatever it is that goes into those anatomical tailpipes. I liked him til he went with Blunt. Terrible amendment. Careless and lazy, and it will cost him. I do no know where these guys get the idea that they are so morally superior.

Wow!! The Election Day this year will be yet, another Powerful Day in Our Nation's History! Let us see, if it will turn out as many as it did four years ago? Where's Ross Perot when you need him?
Make a great day happen, whenever you can now! Enjoy!