Romney's tax rate: 13.9% — Page 2

Some thoughts about debates:

1) General election debates will either have no audience or a hushed audience. Gingrich will not be able to work the room like he did on the Fox & CNN debates.

2) Obama is a much better debater than anyone who has been on the stage with Gingrich.

3) As much as Gingrich can fire up the GOP base, he will also fire up the Dem base and alienate independents.

4) Debates have less effect than most people think, and I'd think an Obama/Gingrich debate will have minimal effect. Both are well known public figures that the vast majority of the electorate have already formed thei opinions about.

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As Stephanie Miller remarked yesterday, Newt Gingrich is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person is like- a smug, lecturing blowhard.

If I were debating Gingrich (oh, be still my heart!) I would let him rant and bluster then stop and say "Newt, do you ever take responsibility for your actions? You insist you've atoned for your personal and governmental misdeeds but the first step in asking for forgiveness is acknowledging your errors and you have never done that. Not when you stepped down as Speaker in disgrace, not when you left your first wife, not when you left your second wife, not ever. Now here you are again lying about me and attacking anyone who dares to question you- You want to be president of the United State? The President has to accept the consequences of his actions and you are absolutely unable to do that. Harry Truman said 'The buck stops here,' not "It's the media's fault."

Updated On: 1/24/12 at 02:39 PM

John Kerry - 13%

"In 2004, John Kerry and his wife released portions of their separate tax returns that showed the couple paid an effective federal tax rate of about 13 percent"
Link

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And Goth- so, it won't be okay when Newt uses this information against Romney? Right?

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Hey, if Goth and the rest of the fringe are OK with it, I'd be more than happy to put Kerry right up there next to Romney if they're willing to discuss tax reform in earnest.

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It's really kind of cute! After throwing out a bunch of current democrats with a "They do it too!" raspberry, when challenged with actual facts, Goth dredges up JOHN KERRY's Tax return from 8 years ago. It shows the pathetic weakness of the Republican position.

If I'm reading correctly, it was actually Kerry's wife who paid the 13% (or 12.3%), thanks to Bush's tax cuts; it looks as though his tax rate (they filed separately) was more like 23%.

"Ms. Heinz Kerry paid a federal tax of $628,401, which is 12.3 percent of her total income and 27.4 percent of her adjusted gross income.

"She was a big beneficiary of the reductions in tax rates on dividends and capital gains that have been enacted under President Bush. She collected more than $2.2 million in dividends, all of which qualified for the new 15 percent tax rate, saving her $440,000, compared with the 35 percent rate that previously applied to dividends for those with million dollar-plus incomes."

She probably quoted Krugman and I paraphrased her. I couldn't find the quote, I only knew I'd heard it on her show Monday.

My fantasy is that Newt wins the nomination and an ad goes out showing Joe Scarborough repeating, over and over, a comment he made on Morning Joe: "Newt Gingrich is a horrible person."

Simple yes or no question: do you think it's fair that Romney pays 13.9% taxes on his income?

Yes, because that is the tax law. Romney didn't write the Internal Revenue Code, he just follows it. Long-term capital gains are taxed at a 15% rate, while short-term capital gains are taxed at an individual's ordinary rate. In fact, the income used to earn those capital gains has already been taxed, presumably at the top federal tax rate.

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Perhaps this is a good time to mention that it's Gingrich who is proposing to completely eliminate the capital gains tax, which would reduce Romney's taxes to near zero. Romney, on the other hand, is proposing to 'increase the tax base'. That's GOP-talk for taxing the poorest Americans. The GOP is offended that the very poor in this country pay little or no federal income tax. What they fail to mention is that we would have to tax the poor at a near 100% tax rate in order to raise the equivalent amount of revenue that eliminating loopholes and raising the rate on the top bracket by 2% would raise. That's the GOP's idea of fairness.

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Why do you think capital gains should be tax-free? You seem bothered the lowest income Americans don't pay income taxes- why in the world would you like to make it that the richest among us not pay any taxes?