pacino wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Read this:

What’s Wrong With Pennsylvania?

this guy let himself be quoted in the ny times saying crap like this:

When I met Kevin Balzer, a Romney supporter who is a Mack Truck supervisor, I asked him why his state looks likely to back Obama. “People are stupid,” he said.

City and state officials, he went on,

eliminated civics from our curriculum. The students don’t know about civics, they don’t know about our history, our government, our constitution. Politicians say they are going to give people things for free to get elected. That is what’s happening in Pennsylvania, especially in Lehigh Valley.
Balzer added that “the white guys got pushed out” of Allentown and neighboring communities, in part by a wave of Hispanic immigration. Balzer, who joined the exodus to areas outside of Allentown, said he and others want to “get away from the whole erosion of the country.”

This reads like a Ted Nugent interview

Mitt Wonders Why Airplane Windows Don't Open

Can't make this stuff up

ok, maybe someone did

Bucky wrote:Mitt Wonders Why Airplane Windows Don't Open

Can't make this stuff up

ok, maybe someone did

Alas, it doesn't play into the Romney narrative. Because it sounds like he thinks airplanes should be more like buses.

Obama has had 4 years to fix the unopening airplane windows problem. It's time for new leadership.

The republicans keep crying that Romney paid more like a 50% income tax rate as opposed to the 14% on his return. They say the 14% is income he was taxed twice on....after the original 35% rate that he initially paid. So who is right about this?

Warszawa wrote:The republicans keep crying that Romney paid more like a 50% income tax rate as opposed to the 14% on his return. They say the 14% is income he was taxed twice on....after the original 35% rate that he initially paid.

That's asinine.

It's basically this type of reasoning

Who is making that case? I think the usual 'double taxation' argument is about dividends because they're taxed as corporate profits and then again when paid to the stockholder.

This wouldn't be the case for most capital gains or interest or most types of income Romney has I think.

Their argument presupposes he made the money initially as salary/earned income, was taxed on it and then invested the balance, only to pay 15% on the resulting investment income. The claim is dubious at best unless you think he took vast amounts of his compensation at Bain as salary, rather than as a distribution of profits. If he did, he's an idiot who should not be elected President.

Of course, the question can be easily answered by simply looking at his tax returns for when he ran Bain. Oh, wait. . .

NOTE: BTW, Bain Capital is an LLC, meaning its profits are taxed only once at the individual level.

jerseyhoya wrote:Who is making that case? I think the usual 'double taxation' argument is about dividends because they're taxed as corporate profits and then again when paid to the stockholder.

This wouldn't be the case for most capital gains or interest or most types of income Romney has I think.

yup.

So Romney doesnt want to go on The View because of Joy Behar. If you're scared of Joy Behar,a leftover from the Catskills-style comedian, maybe you're not cut out for a national campaign.

JFLNYC wrote:Their argument presupposes he made the money initially as salary/earned income, was taxed on it and then invested the balance, only to
pay 15% on the resulting investment income. The claim is dubious at best unless you think he took vast amounts of his compensation at Bain as salary, rather than as a distribution of profits. If he did, he's an idiot who should not be elected President.

Of course, the question can be easily answered by simply looking at his tax returns for when he ran Bain. Oh, wait. . .

NOTE: BTW, Bain Capital is an LLC, meaning its profits are taxed only once at the individual level.

Yes, this is the scenario I am talking about. Listening to 1210am this morning there was a guy from the WSJ talking about how Romney's real tax rate is not being reported correctly by the liberal media. (He also claimed that every newsroom he's ever seen is full of liberals who love Obama).

In a separate unrelated statement by this WSJ guy he says that dems are pushing people onto welfare and food stamps in order to expand the size of the democratic party. Wow, hard to believe the right can be that cynical, but the guy did sound pretty angry at everything.

pacino wrote:So Romney doesnt want to go on The View because of Joy Behar. If you're scared of Joy Behar,a leftover from the Catskills-style comedian, maybe you're not cut out for a national campaign.

he's not going anywhere until they fix the window problem on his private jet

Craig Robinson, former political director, Republican Party of Iowa:

“I hate to say this, but if (Paul) Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”

allentown wrote: The(y)[Iraqis] have also shown that they have no interest in having Sunnis in the military or police in any significant numbers. To the extent that the military needs technical training, the government would prefer to get this training from Iran.

Cept the hated Iranians are Sunnis. Perplexing cunnundrum isn't it.

Iran is Shia

Warszawa wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Their argument presupposes he made the money initially as salary/earned income, was taxed on it and then invested the balance, only to
pay 15% on the resulting investment income. The claim is dubious at best unless you think he took vast amounts of his compensation at Bain as salary, rather than as a distribution of profits. If he did, he's an idiot who should not be elected President.

Of course, the question can be easily answered by simply looking at his tax returns for when he ran Bain. Oh, wait. . .

NOTE: BTW, Bain Capital is an LLC, meaning its profits are taxed only once at the individual level.

Yes, this is the scenario I am talking about. Listening to 1210am this morning there was a guy from the WSJ talking about how Romney's real tax rate is not being reported correctly by the liberal media. (He also claimed that every newsroom he's ever seen is full of liberals who love Obama).

In a separate unrelated statement by this WSJ guy he says that dems are pushing people onto welfare and food stamps in order to expand the size of the democratic party. Wow, hard to believe the right can be that cynical, but the guy did sound pretty angry at everything.

Let me put it to you this way: Romney was CEO and the sole Investing Member (the term used for LLC's instead of shareholder) of Bain Capital. As such, the division of the monies he was paid as an employee (CEO) versus the amount he received in profit distributions (as the sole Investing Member) was entirely within his sole discretion. He could take as much salary as he wanted -- paying up to 35% on such earned income PLUS payroll taxes -- or take most, if not all, as investment income, paying the 15% rate on such income. I haven't seen his returns from then, but I'm going to take a wild guess he went the latter route.

Here's some info about his 2011 return:

The Romneys' 2011 tax return showed adjusted gross income of $13.7 million: $3 million from taxable interest; $3.6 million from dividends; $6.8 million from capital gains; and the balance from other sources. Their wage income? Zero.

Why? The United States over the past 30 years has deliberately favored investment income over wage income, which is taxed at a top rate of 35 percent. In a combination of trickle-down economic theory and raw political power, U.S. investors have won preferred tax-code treatment.

His campaign said in January he got $13 million in income over the last two years from "carried interest," a form of earnings available under the tax code to private equity partners and some hedge fund managers.

The returns show that Romney still has an interest in funds through Bain Capital. The Ann D. Romney Blind Trust lists a long list of Bain-related transactions, for example.

Carried interest is taxed at the 15 percent investment income-tax rate, not the higher ordinary tax rate.

Romney's effective tax rate is lower than many high-income wage earners "because of the 15 percent rate on dividends and capital gains and also the fact that much of that income likely comes from carried interest," said Duke University tax law professor Lawrence Zelenak.

Reuters

And, just to reiterate, his distributions from Bain Capital were and are not double taxed because Bain Capital is a limited liability company.

jerseyhoya wrote:Iran is Shia

Well, correct, but my point was that there is no spirit of cooperation emerging between Iraq and Iran. Sunni & Shi'a are not terribly friendly neighbors.

thephan wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Iran is Shia

Well, correct, but my point was that there is no spirit of cooperation emerging between Iraq and Iran. Sunni & Shi'a are not terribly friendly neighbors.

Iraq is also majority Shia. Saddam was Sunni, but he is dead. Iraq is something like 60/20/20 Shia Arab/Sunni Arab/Kurdish, I think.