As we come down to the last few days before the Presidential election, I am still struck by the fact that Mitt Romney's recent ads and stump speeches seem to have convinced a great number of people that he is not the same person he has been for most of his adult life, in business the past few decades.
I refer to the fact that he has very clearly proven himself to care passionately . . . about money. He took the money he inherited from his family and has grown the family fortune by a considerable degree by expert stewardship of Bain Capital, and also by making extremely canny investments and sheltering those investments from United States income tax.
Most particularly striking is something he said during one of the debates: "You can get a pretty clear indication of where a man's heart is by where he puts his money."
What's so striking about that statement is the fact that Mr. Romney has put his money in a lot of different places, among them investments in Chinese businesses, and also, more to the point, in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss banks. When he has been asked about his taxes--particularly about the fact that he pays a lower tax rate than people who earn a tiny fraction of his yearly income, he has consistently stated that he pays the amount of tax that is required by the law--no more and no less.
And that is not entirely true. Some of his offshore investments take advantage of loopholes in the federal income tax code that have expired. And other investments he has in the Caymans, a tax haven which shelters income from United States income tax, run into more than one hundred million dollars.He has, as reported in various mainstream media, failed to completely report on his Cayman Island investments, some of the tax-sheltered investments, which run into more than one hundred million dollars.
When reporters or people at other events have been critical of his investment choices, he has sometimes responded by asserting that pretty much everyone has some investments in China or the Caymans, because Mutual Funds and 401-Ks will invariably put some of their assets into such venues. But while that is probably true, there are two key differences. Most people don't have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in anything. When Mr. Romney talks about the "middle class" he is fond of talking about what "most people" do with their money--"their investments" . . . but most people don't really have investments. With the increasing disparity of income between the most wealthy and everyone else over the past ten years, the middle-class has been squeezed so that most people have less disposable (or investable) income, not more.
And secondly, Mr. Romney, being, as he has said many times, very experienced in business for the past several decades, knows exactly how and where to invest his money for the greatest possible return. Which is very nice for him and his family . . . but which isn't necessarily so nice for people who work for companies in which he invests. He can make a lot of money--and often, quite a bit more money than by other means--when he sells a company, or when he outsources its production or other facilities to an offshore location where overhead--especially labor--is less costly than it is in the United States. He is noted as a pioneer in the art of outsourcing manufacturing to offshore sites such as China. Especially China. But while this can be extremely lucrative for him, it causes the loss of jobs in the United States.
And that is the point. Business and government are not, no matter what Mr. Romney claims, the same. What is good for investors, Mr. Romney's most typical role, is not necessarily best for the people whose livelihood depends on their actual labor in a business. Making money by one's own labor, as opposed to making money by investing in businesses, requires one to have a job. And when Mr. Romney outsources companies to make investment gains, jobs for Americans go away.
Even more distressing is the fact that when he outsources the labor force of a company that was employing American workers, his customary policy has been to leave those American workers high and dry, offering only minimal severance packages, and leaving them to fend for themselves for jobs and healthcare.
When he says "where a man puts his money is a good indication of where his heart is," this suggests that his heart is not really in the United States, but rather is instead in the Cayman Islands. I can't imagine how a person who has that kind of focus--on building his personal fortune by any means possible, pushing the limits of investment ethics and tax advantages to their maximum while ignoring the human consequences of those whose jobs are left behind--can act as an ethical, compassionate and responsible steward of the common welfare of the United States.
I only hope that voters will see past Mr. Romney's blithe, vague claims of "big change" and creating millions of new jobs and helping the middle class . . . to his true, long-held agenda of amassing great personal wealth, and pursuing a tax and economic policy that aids people in his income bracket at the expense of the middle class. When he talks about his tax policy, and he speaks of closing loopholes, he doesn't talk that much about eliminating the estate tax . . . but that is part of his agenda. And that's something that affects nobody but people who have at least $250,000 to pass on to each of their heirs. Eliminating that tax wouldn't save the middle-class any money. It would save a lot of money for those who already have a lot of money, though.
That's just one example of just how different his focus is from the focus of most people in this country, who are just trying to make a living. Do you have investments in the Caymans? Do you have more than a quarter-million dollars to pass on to each of your children? And what if you did? Would you really refuse to pay a percentage of your income that is as no lower as people making much less money pay?
Do you think it is fair that the rich should pay less than the poor and middle class pay, relative to their income?
Don't decide by watching the artfully produced ads and full-color cardboard mailers. Just think about who Mitt Romney really cares about, and where his heart really is. And please, if your heart is here, in the U.S., and you care about this country, tell your friends.
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