Among the now famous 47 percent who don’t pay federal income taxes, you’ll find our number of the day: 7,000. That’s how many of those individuals who paid no taxes last year were millionaires.
I wonder if those were the lazy miscreants Mitt Romney was thinking about when he said nearly half the population is defined by a culture of dependency and simply wants the government to take care of them. But that goes to the heart of what’s so wrong with Gov. Romney’s comments: He made vast generalizations about people of whom he has little real-world knowledge.
It’s difficult even to put all 7,000 of those tax-free millionaires in one category. Some may indeed have been using unfair loopholes. But others may have escaped taxes because they lost too much on investments or had enormous family medical expenses. Maybe they even had to sell one of their show horses at a loss. I’m sure Gov. Romney could sympathize with that.
So before the candidate speaks disparagingly about tens of millions of Americans, Mitt should make sure he’s not talking about his neighbor in the mansion next door.
