Maybe we need to step back and actually look at the big picture here while the freepers and redstate mouth breathers exhalt what a GOD Willard Romney is for speaking "truth to power" about the 47%ers. I have been very happy, myself, wallowing in the schadenfruede of Willard's speech. With all the layers in the speech from the 47%ers to Iran passing a dirty bomb to hezbollah, and his well thought out solution to the Israel and Palestine problem, what's not to love. Clearly, Willard would make an excellent President, in Bizzaro World.
However, I have been letting this 47%er thing sink in and it hit me, wait a minute, I thought the GOP was all about NOT PAYING TAXES. So when did NOT paying taxes become a bad thing in republican circles? And it turns out, TPM is thinking the same thing. Let's take a look at the headline & story after the orange double dutch...
Many conservatives support programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit which contributes to the phenomenon Romney derided because it advances the goal of replacing welfare programs with work incentive programs. Anti-tax activists separately note that Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan have worked to grow the ranks of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes.
TPM
Okay, so President Reagan advanced the idea that Americans should not pay Federal Income Taxes but Willard and his legion of mouth breathers think of these people as dependent on government, victims, and will not take personal responsibility for their lot in life.
The article goes on to articulate the republican philosophy of low to no taxes as a long time pillar and how Willard's disdain for this policy has the goper wonks wringing their hands.
"Since when has it been the job of Republicans and conservatives to make sure everyone has IRS obligations?" wrote Jim Antle at the Daily Caller. He accused Romney of ignoring the rising payroll tax burden of the last few decades while dismissing many of those who have borne it as deadbeats.
"One thing that frustrates me," wrote Salam, "is that many Republicans who embraced the "takers" interpretation of the fact that 46% of tax units didn't pay federal income taxes forget why Republican policymakers of the past created policies like the EITC and the child tax credit in the first palce! We need conservative politicians who are willing to explain why low-income and middle-income parents should be removed from the tax rolls during the years they are making the biggest investments in their children, and who are willing to make the case for the EITC program as an alternative to worklessness and lifelong dependency."
TPM
Again, the article articulates the rub I've been mulling all day. On the one hand, the republican party is the party of low/no taxes (I guess for only some) and on the other hand those that don't pay taxes are nothing but a bunch of freeloading bloodsuckers (I refer back to that"some" if one asked me). So which is it? There is a cognitive dissonance going on here (nothing new). And I think the "smart" people that Santorum was referring to over the weekend, were the smart people in his own party.
Read the article. It's worth the debate with any goper who wants to rail against the 47%ers.
TPM