A graph of non-payers by state. Eight of the ten states with the highest concentration are red states, i.e. Republican-leaning states. Source: The Tax Foundation (http://taxfoundation.org/)

This May, at a private, $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton, Mitt Romney stood before a room full of his most important constituents: rich people. At home in his natural element with the Americans he most identifies with, Mr. Romney let his guard down, and for the first time in his long career of running-for-president, he spoke honestly.

Perhaps too honestly.

If you haven’t seen the secret tape from this May fundraiser (Mother Jones broke the story last week.) then you’ve surely heard about it, because it’s been the talk of the national media since it emerged. Most of the public ire revolves around a comment Mr. Romney makes during the hour-long video about a certain 47 percent of Americans:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Mr. Romney isn’t talking about 47 percent of a smaller demographic; he’s talking about half of the United States. Apparently, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney doesn’t care about half of the American people, giving them up for unrepentant Obama supporters beyond saving.

A graph breaking down the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax. Source: The Tax Policy Center (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org)

How can this candidate possibly expect to win the presidency when he shows such open disdain for nearly half of the population? The remark reveals a lot about Mr. Romney’s character, and for many this tape confirmed the negative perception of Mitt Romney as a heartless plutocrat, an image he desperately tried to shirk off during the GOP convention, which tried (and largely failed, according to the polls) to humanize him.

But notice how Mitt Romney qualifies Americans he doesn’t care about, from Americans he does care about: “These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.”

That’s the criteria here, and it reflects a very popular line in conservative thinking, that Americans who pay little or no income tax are moochers, welfare queens, parasites — often enough you’ll hear conservative thinkers or talk show hosts equate paying no income tax to paying no taxes whatsoever, which isn’t only factually untrue (AKA, a lie), it’s actually quite a spiteful thing to say.

While it is true that 47 percent of Americans do not pay federal income taxes, they still pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, and state and local taxes. They aren’t moochers or welfare queens.

In fact, what’s doubly problematic for Mitt Romney is that this same 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes are also his most likely supporters.

Who Are The 47 Percent?

Here is a quick breakdown of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax:

• More than half of this 47 percent are elderly, retired and living off social security. (The elderly vote is an important voting bloc that Republicans have pursued relentlessly.)

• Soldiers on active duty are exempt from paying federal income taxes.

• Only 6.9 percent of the broader 47 percent are non-elderly families that pay neither federal income nor payroll taxes. These households have a yearly income of less than $20,000 per year.

• About six extremely wealthy families were exempt from paying federal income taxes in 2009; these are households that took in about $200 million each.

• The Southern states have the highest concentration of non-payers in the country, and the majority of households that pay no income tax are located in these reliably Republican-leaning red states.

These are the people Mitt Romney accuses of having no “personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

They are also, ironically, the people most likely to vote for him.

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