HeyBub wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
Can we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle
of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants
us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal,
declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a
third of
the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic benefit.


Certainly.

That Romney paid a lesser rate implies that he took advantage of tax
breaks, deductions, etc., built into the tax code.

Now these exemptions and so forth were placed in the tax code by our
betters to further various social goals such as contributions to
charity, home mortgage interest, and the like. To the degree that
Romney sought out and participated in those social goals, he should
be commended!
Ross Perot, as an exemplar, paid NO taxes on his millions in income
because his income was solely in the form of tax-exempt mutual bonds.

Because Romney evidently helped fund various social goals, cities are
improved, children don't go to bed hungry, the homeless find succor,
alcoholics have access to treatment programs, and, for all I know,
stray dogs and cats get three hots and a cot.

Don't bother HeyBub. This has always been a sore spot for people. It's
usually middle class people who pay a greater percentage of their income in
taxes, because they either don't qualify for the breaks, or do not put the
effort into getting those breaks. I don't believe it's because they feel
they should pay all of those taxes for some altruistic reason. Net - it
comes down to a certain level of jealousy for those who do know how to, and
do take advantage of those breaks. Not totally logical IMHO. What those
people don't look at is the actual dollar amounts. Sure, the percentage is
lower if you know how to take advantage of the breaks, but the dollars are a
lot higher. In the end - there is a big difference between the thousands of
dollars that most folks pay, and the millions of dollars that those nasty
rich folks pay.

--

-Mike-