Robert Reich: Rmoney Is 'Living Embodiment' Of Upward Redistribution Threat To Democracy

Robert Reich offers his observations on Rmoney's very circumscribed release of his tax information (those who remember Richard Nixon may call it his "modified limited hangout"), and what it implies:

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"Job Creator's" Reward

American has had hugely wealthy presidents before — think of Teddy Roosevelt and his distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt; or John F. Kennedy, beneficiary of father Joe’s fortune.

But here’s the difference. These men were champions of the working class and the poor, and were considered traitors to their own class. Teddy Roosevelt railed against the “malefactors of great wealth,” and he busted up the oil and railroad trusts.

FDR thundered against the “economic royalists,” raised taxes on the wealthy, and gave average working people the right to form unions — along with Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and a 40-hour workweek.

But Mitt Romney is not a traitor to his class. He is a sponsor of his class. He wants to cut their taxes by $3.7 trillion over the next decade, and hasn’t even specified what “loopholes” he’d close to make up for this gigantic giveaway.

And he wants to cut benefits that almost everyone else relies on — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and housing assistance.

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In other words, everything America is learning about Mitt Romney — his tax returns, his years at Bain Capital, the video of his speech to high-end donors in which he belittles half of America, his gaffes, the budget policies he promotes — repeat and reenforce the same underlying reality.

So much wealth and power have accumulated at the top of America that our economy and our democracy are seriously threatened. Romney not only represents this problem. He is the living embodiment of it.

As I shut down my tiny business in the face of an overwhelming recession that kicked the bottom out of demand for the once highly sought product I produced, in my last year of that tiny business, as things were clearly going to ground for me and for millions of other small business owners, in that last year, I paid federal taxes at a far higher rate than Mitt Rmoney. In fact I'd say that because my income was earned income (not capital gains), and because self-employed Americans pay both halves (employee's and employer's) of their payroll tax, my tax rate was dramatically higher than that of Mitt Rmoney, Rich Boy Wonder.

And what does Rmoney do to "earn" all this money? That's simple: he uses other people's money to buy companies, squeezes them hard (firing people, selling assets) to make them appear more profitable, sells their lifeless carcasses to someone else, who finds out the hard way that you can't run a company without employees and equipment... and finally takes home his tidy profit. "Job creator," my fucking ass!

I'm sorry, but that's just not right. Mitt Rmoney is a freeloader. He takes from the little guy and gal. He doesn't worry about us; he said so right out in front of Dog and everybody. He forces the rest of us to compensate for his low, low tax rate; he leaves thousands of people jobless. And he does it because he can, and for him, that makes it "right." May the good Dog preserve me from people engaged in that sort of "rightness"!

Mr. Rmoney: you're no Teddy, and you're no FDR!