The State of the Union Speech and Mitt the Blunderer

What bug stung Mitt Romney and his team of advisers? Was it the gullibility, the blunder or the downright foolishness bug? Because when you announce that you paid 15 percent in taxes on income amounting in the millions of dollars on the morning of the day of the State of the Union address, given by your main opponent, it’s offering him tons of free ammunition.

One can easily imagine the bursts of laughter resonating in every nook and cranny of the White House, from the president to lower staff, that morning, when everyone learned that Romney had amassed revenue totaling $45 million in two years thanks to minimum tax payments coupled with yields on accounts opened in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the Bermudas. The news provoked all the more disorder in that it brought attention like nothing else since the beginning of the Republican primaries to the fact that Romney acquired this sum of millions by profiting from his not-so-distant past as the head of Bain Capital, a hedge fund that, among other things, dismembered American companies, encouraging the outsourcing of jobs.

This golden opportunity was, of course, all that Obama and his staff needed to target Romney in the State of the Union address — without even mentioning his name. The fact remains that the leader of the executive branch wants a tax reform that falls under the same banner as billionaire Warren Buffet’s rule: Tax rates should be at least 30 percent for any income at or above $1 million. “The boss should pay more taxes than his secretary.” That is not at all the current situation. As far as tax deductions go, Obama has proposed to reduce the number of them in order to put a stop to the petrifying consequences they have on tax revenue.

Did Romney suggest that it would have been better to let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt? Obama commended the fact that government loans permitted the resurgence of the automobile industry. Does Romney want to deregulate Wall Street even more? Obama wants to do just the opposite, simply because the unbridled carelessness of his predecessor, George W. Bush, put the economy on the skids. Did Romney oversee the outsourcing of a great number of jobs? Obama intends to put an end to tax deductions for companies that outsourcing in order to better grant tax credits to those that repatriate employment.

But let’s skip all that in order to linger a little longer on Romney’s strategic gaffe. It was only natural that when Newt Gingrich demanded the publication of Romney’s tax declaration some three weeks ago, Romney was doomed to allow it. Instead of nipping the problem in the bud, he waited and quibbled. By doing so, he instilled doubt and made himself vulnerable to rumors. And worse, he found no other remedy than to make these documents public on the morning of, not the next day or the day after that, but on the very day of Obama’s State of the Union address.

As such, he allowed the president to bring special and concrete attention to all the defects perforating the United States’ economic health. All it takes to be convinced of this is to observe, over and over again, the shameful looks of Republicans listening to Obama. What else? Contrary to last year, their interruptions were very timid. Period.