Romney Pens Open Letter To Obama In Ohio

[ProSense]

Last edited Fri May 4, 2012, 09:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Romney Pens Open Letter To Obama In Ohio

Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has written an open letter to President Obama in the op-ed pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Obama is scheduled to kick off his re-election campaign at a stop in Ohio on Saturday. In the letter, Romney chides Obama as a “career politician” whose “policies have failed, not only in Ohio, but across the nation.”

Our taxes are too high, and our government is too big. I will cut individual tax rates by 20 percent across the board to jump-start job creation, grow the economy and help Americans keep more of their hard-earned dollars. I will reform a corporate tax system that drives American jobs overseas. I will slash the needless regulations that crimp our energy supply and inhibit so many different kinds of businesses. In the year I was born, unemployment was 3.9 percent. When I turned 21, it was 3.6 percent. We can do so much better than we have been doing.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/romney-pens-open-letter-to-obama-in-ohio

Dear Mitt, the year you were born, 1947, the top tax rate was 85 percent. When you were 21, it was 75 percent.

In 2010, you made more than $20 million and paid 13 percent, much less than someone earning $100,000.

[sharp_stick]

1. Open Letter To Romney

Did you learn that while draft dodging in France?

[denverbill]

2. That should be Obama's reply.

[ProSense]

4. Yeah, and

throw in the capital gains tax rates too.

[DreamGypsy]

5. Federal tax rates 1947

Top rate on regular income: 86.5%
Top rate on capital gains: 25%

[ProSense]

6. Thanks. n/t

[WI_DEM]

3. Open letter to Mittens Romney

Dear Mittens,
Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. Unemployment is at a three-year low. The economy has been gaining jobs in the private sector for 28 straight months. Why would we want to go back to the policies that got us into the mess that President Obama inherited?
WI DEM
p.s.
Perhaps you should make a good will tour to all the countries where you store loot to evade US income taxes? I bet they would appreciate it.

[DreamGypsy]

7. How about income distribution in 1947?

I found an interesting census bureau publication The Changing Shape of the Nation’s Income Distribution 1947-1998 that was published in 2000.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2000pubs/p60-204.pdf

Since 1947, the Census Bureau has employed a commonly used measure, the Gini coefficient (also known as the index of income concentration), to measure family income inequality. With two exceptions, the Gini coefficient decreased between 1947 and 1968. During this period, the Gini for families indicated a decrease in income inequality of 7.5 (±2.1) percent.2 Since 1968, however, this trend has reversed. Income inequality for families, measured by the Gini coefficient, increased between 1968 and 1998 (see Figure 1). The net effect over the entire 1947-1998 period is an increase in family income inequality

The document has detailed information about the years 1968-1998, including distribution of household income by fifths from lowest to highest and Men/Women income disparities.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. All carrot - no stick

If the idea is to bring corporate taxes and wages down to where they are in China in order to satisfy corporations and hope that they then create jobs here, we may as well become China. Why not just severely punish corporations that ship jobs overseas by taking away 95% of their money made both domestically and abroad when they do this and impose onerous taxes on CEOs making it impossible for them to live in the United States. Give them the choice of either leaving the United States altogether or trying to contribute to the society that has enabled them to profit so well. Without the U.S. market to buy their Chinese made products, they'd soon be playing ball. The taxing power can be used to change behavior. However with the Republicans, we can only use carrots to influence behavior but never the stick.