Shameful blunder

T TURNS out that Mitt Romney was right. There is class warfare being waged in the 2012 campaign. But it is Romney who is waging it, not President Obama, and he’s stood the whole idea on its head.

Romney has been trying to incite the anger of a small slice of the richest Americans who need no government assistance, but get it anyway, against the working poor, older Americans, the disabled workers and veterans, and even a significant chunk of middle-class Americans.

That was the message of remarks that Romney made in May at a private fund-raiser held at a private equity manager’s estate in Florida, a moment when he thought he was safe from annoying reporters and cameramen, and other Americans who are not rich enough to have bought a ticket to the event.

A video made public on Monday showed a Romney who felt free to speak candidly. Romney spoke with a bone-chilling cynicism and a revolting smugness. Gone was the pretence that he would be a president of all Americans. Romney divided the country between the people who matter, and the 47 percent he does not care about.

To Romney, that 47 percent consists of people who do not make enough money to be required to pay federal income tax. They were freeloaders, he said, and it was not his job “to worry about those people”.

The right wing has long been whining about people who don’t pay taxes. They have it backwards. The shame is not that those people don’t pay income taxes. The shame is how many poor people there are when the top 1 percent can amass uncountable fortunes fed by tax breaks and can donate tens of millions of dollars to political candidates to keep it that way. – The New York Times