Fuck the Republican Party.

[JebusLives]

What blows my mind about the 47% comment, is that a full 1/3 or so of those "free-loaders" vote Republican.

Or did.

[TomAz]

1/3 might be an understatement. It may be 2/3rds.

[JebusLives]

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...o-the-47-vote/

Sounds like its about 1/3 of the poor segment, but more than half of the elderly segment.

Anyway, stupid.

[PlayaDelWes]

1/3 might be an understatement. It may be 2/3rds.

Yup, 10 states with the highest number of people who pay no federal income tax:

Utah: Nonpayers: 38.3%
Texas: Nonpayers: 38.5%
Idaho: Nonpayers: 38.6%
New Mexico: Nonpayers: 38.7%
South Carolina: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Arkansas: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Florida: Nonpayers: 39%
Alabama: Nonpayers: 40.3%
Georgia: Nonpayers: 42.5%
Mississippi: Nonpayers: 44.5%

[PotVsKtl]

But Mexicans.

[Miroir Noir]

Yup, 10 states with the highest number of people who pay no federal income tax:

Utah: Nonpayers: 38.3%
Texas: Nonpayers: 38.5%
Idaho: Nonpayers: 38.6%
New Mexico: Nonpayers: 38.7%
South Carolina: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Arkansas: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Florida: Nonpayers: 39%
Alabama: Nonpayers: 40.3%
Georgia: Nonpayers: 42.5%
Mississippi: Nonpayers: 44.5%

Stay-at-home moms in the Mormon belt, under-educated and under-employed Southern whites, and retirees in Florida: the 47% who would never consider voting for Romney.

[Miroir Noir]

Also, shiftless New Mexican lazabouts like Jesse Pinkman, Badger, Skinny Pete, and TommyBoyUNM

[amyzzz]

Also, shiftless New Mexican lazabouts like Jesse Pinkman, Badger, Skinny Pete, and TommyBoyUNM

Made me chuckle.

[PlayaDelWes]

If I were a presidential candidate, once or twice I may think about tinkering around the Tax Foundation or IRS’s web site for a good hour or two. Or at least hire some people who can succinctly deliver me some fact-based support from time-to-time.

[SoulDischarge]

And that's why you'd never get the Republican nomination.

[heart cooks brain]

here's the full map

[TomAz]

Yup, 10 states with the highest number of people who pay no federal income tax:

Utah: Nonpayers: 38.3%
Texas: Nonpayers: 38.5%
Idaho: Nonpayers: 38.6%
New Mexico: Nonpayers: 38.7%
South Carolina: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Arkansas: Nonpayers: 38.8%
Florida: Nonpayers: 39%
Alabama: Nonpayers: 40.3%
Georgia: Nonpayers: 42.5%
Mississippi: Nonpayers: 44.5%

here's the full map

All these numbers are less than 47%. How can the national rate be 47%?

[PlayaDelWes]

All these numbers are less than 47%. How can the national rate be 47%?

Not sure how to correlate the state break-out to the total, but the real number is 46.4% and here's the study .

[heart cooks brain]

someone who knows something about taxes

"If I had paid more [taxes] than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president" -- Mitt Romney
"The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years." -- mittromney.com

does this make any sense?

[TomAz]

ha, no it does not.

[bobert]

someone who knows something about taxes



does this make any sense?

I think what they're suggesting is that Mitt Romney didn't deduct all of his charitable contributions because it would have brought his liability down to a rate that is even lower and more embarrassing than he initially suggested. He paid more than he was legally required to, which contradicts his statement that you quoted, and basically means that Romney has admitted that he's not qualified to be our president.

[mountmccabe]

Hello, fellow tax units.

[mountmccabe]

I was gonna say the discrepancy could be the map counts adults and the chart counts units (some of which are singles, some of which are filing jointly) but I don't think that checks out. And the map says those numbers are a percentage of filers, so they should be even higher.

[Miroir Noir]

Ezra Klein:

Can you imagine the meeting at Romney campaign HQ where the decision to pay extra in taxes in order to keep the rate above 13% was made? Imagine the pros and cons of that debate.

[bmack86]

Tom, could it be that the map charts the percentage of population within each state that does not pay the tax? Thus, if 37% of Californians pay no Federal income tax, that's a larger percentage of the US population than if 45% of Michiganders didn't. Just a guess.

[mountmccabe]

Just figured it out. The map is showing non-payers as a percentage of tax filers.

The 46% figure is as a percentage of tax units (individuals and households). For 2011 31.1 million tax units did not file, presumably because they weren't going to owe anything.

So 132.8 million units filed and 87.8 million units payed, so 45 million units are non-paying filers. That's 34%. Which makes a whole lot more sense with the numbers on the map.

It also means that that map means fuck all, really.

[JebusLives]

“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem.

- Actual Mitt Romney quote

[bmack86]

I'd prefer to be able to put my arm out the window and feel the breeze rip by while on a plane.

[nathanfairchild]

fucking windows, how do they work?

[HotHamWater]

He had to have been chuckling or something when he said that. I refuse to believe an adult human presidential candidate would seriously say something like that. I need the audio or video.

[TomAz]

[Miroir Noir]

My favorite thing making the rounds on the Republican Twittersphere in a long time: a website that "fixes" polling results by changing the samples to account for more Republicans. Because polling now has a liberal bias.

[SoulDischarge]

They obviously don't roll down because people would throw pennies out the window and kill people. Use your head dum dum.

[TomAz]

My favorite thing making the rounds on the Republican Twittersphere in a long time: a website that "fixes" polling results by changing the samples to account for more Republicans. Because polling now has a liberal bias.

This is not at all a conspiracy theory. I don't do conspiracy theories. This is a very well designed, well planned and they hope, brilliantly executed plan to help President Obama win a second term. The mainstream media has no intentions of sitting on the sidelines and merely objectively reporting the news of the election contest while watching Barack Obama become another Jimmy Carter. They will create the perception, via skewed polls, that Obama is winning and then hope the campaign can take advantage of this perception and steal enough votes to actually win the election. Then the perception, and the polls, will validate the stolen election and make it look all so plausible and realistic. If you don't believe they are doing this, then ask yourself how a president who is doing worse economically than Jimmy Carter was can somehow be reelected?

It's not a conspiracy. It's a well planned plan.

[mountmccabe]

It looks like a big thing they're doing is deciding for the undecideds, 3 to 1 (or more) for Romney.

As former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris and others have pointed out, the undecided vote in a presidential election will always heavily favor the challenging candidate by election day. A reasonable figure to use as a factor on this is to estimate that approximately 75 percent of the current undecided voters, who are voters that have already decided they will not vote for Barack Obama but have not finalized a decision to vote for Mitt Romney, will break for Romney at some time between now and election day.

In one of the other explanations he uses 80%.