Subsidizing Romney

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Tuesday April 17, 2012 · 4:23 PM PDT

2012/04/17 · 16:23

X-posted at ACT NOW

This Tuesday, April 17, when most Americans are filing their tax returns and writing their checks to Uncle Sam, Mitt Romney will be taking an extension until October. You can get this six-month extension too if you need one -- such as if you're running for president and would rather not make your tax returns public right now.

While the highest income tax bracket is currently taxed at 35%, the Romneys have estimated an income of $20.9 million for 2011 and a tax bill of $3.2 million, for an effective tax rate of just 15.3%. Similarly, Mitt's 2010 returns showed income of $21.6 million taxed at a rate of only 13.9%. (By comparison, the Obamas did file their tax returns last week, reporting income of $789,674 taxed at 20.5%.) The reason for Romney's sizable tax break is that most of his income comes from capital gains, dividends, and "carried interest" (his share in profits of private equity firm Bain Capital), all of which, particularly since the Bush tax cuts, have been taxed at a much lower rate than salary.

lbraman

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Thursday January 12, 2012 · 7:20 AM PST

2012/01/12 · 07:20

(X-posted on ACT NOW)

If you had to give President Obama a grade in International Affairs for these past three years, what would it be? A plus? B minus? “Incomplete”? For my part, I give him (and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, key architect of his foreign policy) an A minus, for a job well done, with room for improvement.

It’s been interesting to watch Republicans try to find fault in every foreign policy decision Obama has made, without much of a coherent theme or a credible claim of what they’d do differently.

lbraman

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Tuesday December 13, 2011 · 5:29 AM PST

2011/12/13 · 05:29

(x-posted at ACT NOW)

This past week, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the National Popular Vote movement (the initiative to have the president chosen by direct popular vote rather than the electoral college) an "absurd and dangerous" idea that would lead to "catastrophic" results, saying, "We need to kill it in the cradle before it grows up.”

Yikes, Mitch. Methinks you doth protest too much. What is it exactly about National Popular Vote that you're so afraid of?

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Subsidizing Romney

Grading Obama on Foreign Affairs

Who's Afraid of the Popular Vote?