A Foregone Election? The Blunder that Wasn't Really a Blunder

Has Mitt Romney just lost for good any chance he had of winning the presidential election? Or has he, on the contrary, got the debate going again? An amateur video published on Monday, where he attacks the “47 percent of Americans who are dependent upon government and who will vote for Obama no matter what,” has caused a stir among his opponents as well as embarrassed his partisans, because Romney has once again handed their enemies a stick to beat them with. But it has also led to a debate that could prove profitable to the Republicans.

Accused of “despising the little people” and of “relaunching class warfare,”* the Republican candidate was attacked on all fronts and has found himself on the defensive. Meanwhile, he is still struggling to overtake Obama in the polls. But his words are upsetting for another, deeper reason that lies far beyond the context of the presidential campaign.

Romney has said out loud what a lot of Americans secretly think. And he put his finger on a social shift that has become worrying — far from the image of a nation of pioneers and “self-made men,” America has become a society of “dependency,” addicted to state subsidies.

The video at the source of the scandal was uploaded on Monday, September 17 on the website Mother Jones, a far-left publication and the mouthpiece of anti-globalization thesis. The website did not indicate how they got hold of it.

It is dated May 17, 2012, and was recorded during a fundraising dinner in Boca Raton, Florida, attended by Republican sympathizers who paid $50,000 to be present that night!

Mitt Romney can be heard declaring: “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… My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

This video caused an instant uproar, taking precedence over other trending topics, including continuing anti-American protests in the Muslim world. For many analysts, Romney had committed “one blunder too many.” His words reinforce the negative stereotypes he is saddled with, those that describe him as an ultra-rich financier disconnected from reality and disdainful of the working classes.

Initially, Romney was somewhat shaken, for that matter. Appearing a little embarrassed in front of the cameras, he admitted his words “lacked elegance.” But far from denying them, he underlined their validity — because his remarks generated a substantive debate that provided him with a propitious way out.

Some analysts have indeed wondered whether Romney had not described an insidious reality. Not that there may be 47 percent of Americans living at the expense of the government, but that by insisting on insinuating itself into all aspects of daily life, government assistance may have become some sort of “drug” which Americans have become “addicted to.”

In substance, Romney is wrong. His declaration does not match the facts. The 47 percent of Americans who do not pay income tax are not necessarily the most important beneficiaries of government generosity.

In the United States, income tax is deducted at the source, in the form of a “payroll tax,” “a deduction on the salary” (a part of which is generally paid by the employer). Depending on the level of the salary, this “payroll tax” can be completed with an “income tax.”

Which means that when filing his tax, an American citizen can find out that he still owes the federal government, that he does not owe any more, or even that it is the government that owes him money for having deducted too much. In which case he receives a “tax refund!”

Each year, around 47 percent of Americans thus do not have to pay “income tax” or receive a refund. But they still pay a tax on their income. And since this tax is deducted from an income, it appears clearly that Americans are “workers” and not “parasites.” The number of people who are 100 percent government-assisted is a lot lower than Mitt Romney would seem to suggest.

Nevertheless, government spending increases every year and successive administrations have failed to reverse this trend and reduce spending, although they all promise to work at it.

For some analysts, Mitt Romney’s comments thus deserve credit for defining the terms of the debate — the November presidential election offers Americans a unique opportunity to go back to a society of “responsibility” and to end the society of “dependency.” Beyond an opposition between Americans who “receive and give nothing back” and others who “give and receive nothing back,” the real question is what society will be chosen.

“The president believes in what I’ve described as a government-centered society where government plays a larger and larger role,” Mitt Romney claims. “I happen to believe instead in a free enterprise, free individual society where people pursuing their dreams are able to employ one another, build enterprises, build the strongest economy in the world.”

The ballot on November 6 will tell whether the society envisaged by Mitt Romney, that conforms with the image America has of itself, still conforms with the reality and the desires of Americans.

*Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, these statements could not be independently verified.