Mitt Romney spoke at a gathering of supporters recently and claimed that 47% of Americans don't pay taxes, are dependent upon government, and will never resonate with his message of lower taxes. He felt he'd never get them to support him. He's probably right that they won't support him, but he's not right for the right reason.
They won't support him not because they disagree on the role of government (and please forgive all the negatives). Sure they think government should provide more help for the poor than Mr. Romney would approve of. But that's not why they won't vote for him.
The won't vote for him because Mr. Romney has a tin ear. Actually he has two tin ears. Mr. Romney sees no inequity in a system that pays one person $20,000 for a year's work and another person $2,000,000 for a year's work. Clearly one is doing a job we don't value too highly and the other is doing a job requiring more skill. No one questions there should be a difference in pay. But we can all see how clearly Mr. Romney disparages the poor fool with the shit-for-pay job. It's got to be the poor fool's fault that he's got a shit-for-pay job. If Mr. Romney figured out how to get a high paying job, why can't everyone. That's the first tin ear. He can't respect folks who have only figured out how to get low paying jobs.
The second tin ear is his reverence for an economic system that produces low paying jobs. Again, we may all agree that capitalism is the best economic system around. But that does not mean we can't recognize it's short-comings. Low pay, and I'm talking about poverty-level pay, is a short-coming of the system. It may be an inevitable part of the system, but at least we can have the good grace to recognize its stench. Mr. Romney doesn't smell the stench of a low paying job; he just smells the stench of a low paid person.
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