The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward on Wednesday said “tax returns are a character issue.”
This occurred during a lengthy Morning Joe discussion about – what else? - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s taxes (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
As NewsBusters previously reported, the gang at Morning Joe were having a field day tearing apart Romney’s admission that he pays about fifteen percent in taxes.
“He should have put the tax returns out probably a long time ago,” said Woodward. “And then everyone would say, ‘Okay, he’s rich, he’s paying the capital gains dividends rate, not surprising.’ Now it’s going to be surprising, and the disparity, as you point out, with the middle-class taxpayer, or even with President Obama is quite stark.”
After NBC’s Andrea Mitchell agreed with the predictable nonsense about how it would have been far better if Romney had disclosed this information sooner, Woodward interjected, “But tax returns are a character issue. It tells you a lot about somebody, who they are, where their money comes from.”
Tax returns are a character issue? So what does it say about the character of the 47 percent of filers that don’t pay any taxes at all?
Not surprisingly, the media don’t like talking about them.
Also preposterous was Woodward's claim about the "disparity" between what the middle-class and Romney pay in taxes as well as the completely false chyron at the bottom of the screen "Romney's Tax Rate Lower Than Most Americans."
In reality, nothing can be further from the truth.
As the Internal Revenue Service reported months ago, the only people in America paying more than fifteen percent federal income tax in 2009 had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or greater. This comprised less than three percent of the tax returns filed that year.
As such, if it turns out Romney is paying fifteen percent federal income tax, he is paying more than 97 percent of Americans NOT less than most as MSNBC claimed.
Think you're going to hear that from the Obama-loving media?
Something else they'll certainly ignore is that 97 percent of Americans pay less than twelve percent in federal income taxes based on AGI.
Keep that in mind as the press carp and whine about someone paying only fifteen percent in taxes.
