15%

You know what this is about.  Mitt Romney paid only 15% in federal income taxes last year and who knows how many years before that and yet he actually does nothing.  Yes, he has no discernible job.  He neither creates something nor provides a service.  He does move money around which these days is the best way to make lots and lots of it. He also runs his mouth quite a bit. But that's a freebie. I and others like me pay 35% of my adjusted income to the feds. That doesn't count the money I paid to the state in income and property taxes. One year we paid what amounted to my entire take home salary to the government. What then is my incentive to work? If you are lucky enough to earn a bonus the feds take almost 50% of it right off the top. Talk about no incentive. Tax breaks for ordinary wage earners are almost non-existent while those for the wealthy multiply.

The fact is that working people, who go to work every day and actually do "drive" the economy forward t pay a much greater percentage of their income in taxes than do those who merely shuffle paper. That's just wrong on so many levels! I know the thinking in Washington  is that investors "drive" the economy forward but I honestly believe that's faulty reasoning. Look what investors did in 2008.  Romney, for example, doesn't invest he just moves money around from one investment to another.  People like him don't create businesses, products, or innovations, instead they make money from what is basically gambling, buying and selling stocks, futures, or whatever.

Imagine this:  a tanker of oil from the Middle East can be bought and sold as many as 50 times before it reaches refiners in the U.S.. This drives up the price since it's sold for a profit each time. This kind of speculation does not drive the economy forward, rather the reverse as gasoline costs go up. The people who do this have millions and make millions on their transactions and I would speculate that their tax rate is far below my 35%.

Amazingly, Republicans from all over the U.S. support people like Romney despite the fact that they are working people who have no hope of ever acquiring such wealth. In South Carolina, where people receive more federal aid than in nearly any other state, voters are staunchly Republican and against more federal aid and taxes.  I say fine, cut their Social Security and Medicare. In fact take them off the federal aid dole altogether and make them work for a living and pay their own medical expenses.

It boggles my mind that working people fall for the rhetoric of the Republicans, believing that the party of big business and the ultra-wealthy will work for their benefit if elected. I seriously doubt if Romney or his cohorts will spend one second thinking about the plight of working Americans or trying to create a fair system of taxation. Few people are altruistic enough to fight for something that goes against their self-interest and I don't see any candidates on the horizon that are endowed with that much character.