Facebook has been an interesting place for me. True, most of my friends are liberals but on occasion I'll discuss politics with a conservative, the type of person who sees me as a corporate sell-out for backing a Democrat or with a disgruntled person who supported Obama in 2008 but is now voting for Romney.
It is all good.
But by talking to one of the latter (former Obama supporter turned Romney supporter) I got to see how Mr. Romney manages to delude people. Here is one example; more below the fold...
Facebook has been an interesting experience for me. I recently encountered a former Obama supporter who is voting for Romney this time around; nothing wrong with that; it is ok to change one's mind. He decided to drop in on my debate conversation. Here is a bit of what happened:
I was responding to Mr. Romney's attempt to answer (ok, dodge) the question of which exemptions that he would eliminate:
Romney isn't answering the question....limit exemptions? Which ones?
To which my visitor replied:
Are you deaf? Romney said he would cap mortgage-interest deductioins, which would be fine with me. I am a giver, not a taker.
I responded (it was now during the work day)
What cap? Details please?
He responded:
Sounds like you hear only what you want to hear, Ollie.
So, did I really miss something???? Well.....no.
When I had a break at work I went to the debate transcript:
QUESTION: Oh, I remember.
The education credits, which are important to me, because I have children in college. What would be your position on those things, which are important to the middle class?
ROMNEY: Thank you very much. And let me tell you, you're absolutely right about part of that, which is I want to bring the rates down, I want to simplify the tax code, and I want to get middle- income taxpayers to have lower taxes.
And the reason I want middle-income taxpayers to have lower taxes is because middle-income taxpayers have been buried over the past four years. You've seen, as middle-income people in this country, incomes go down $4,300 a family, even as gasoline prices have gone up $2,000. Health insurance premiums, up $2,500. Food prices up. Utility prices up.
The middle-income families in America have been crushed over the last four years. So I want to get some relief to middle-income families. That's part — that's part one.
Now, how about deductions? 'Cause I'm going to bring rates down across the board for everybody, but I'm going to limit deductions and exemptions and credits, particularly for people at the high end, because I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of the income tax the nation collects. So that'll stay the same.
Middle-income people are going to get a tax break.
And so, in terms of bringing down deductions, one way of doing that would be say everybody gets — I'll pick a number — $25,000 of deductions and credits, and you can decide which ones to use. Your home mortgage interest deduction, charity, child tax credit, and so forth, you can use those as part of filling that bucket, if you will, of deductions.
But your rate comes down and the burden also comes down on you for one more reason, and that is every middle-income taxpayer no longer will pay any tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. No tax on your savings. That makes life a lot easier.
If you're getting interest from a bank, if you're getting a statement from a mutual fund or any other kind of investment you have, you don't have to worry about filing taxes on that, because there'll be no taxes for anybody making $200,000.00 per year and less, on your interest, dividends and capital gains. Why am I lowering taxes on the middle-class? Because under the last four years, they've been buried. And I want to help people in the middle-class.
And I will not — I will not under any circumstances, reduce the share that's being paid by the highest income taxpayers. And I will not, under any circumstances increase taxes on the middle-class. The president's spending, the president's borrowing will cost this nation to have to raise taxes on the American people. Not just at the high end. A recent study has shown the people in the middle-class will see $4,000.00 per year in higher taxes as a result of the spending and borrowing of this administration.
Emphasis mine.
So what did my facebook friend hear? He heard a "specific" when in fact, Mr. Romney said "one way to do this...". He never said it was in his plan or even that he would propose it. Heck, I could come up with ways to do it.
But my visitor didn't catch that...instead he said that I was "deaf" and that I only heard what I wanted to hear! :)
Oh well; I hoped that this visitor would bring an enlightened perspective but it turns out that he doesn't know what he is talking about.
Oh yes, about that last 4000 dollar per year claim: (via Fact Check.org)
$4,000 in Higher Taxes on Middle Class?
Romney was wrong when he said “the middle class will see $4,000 per year in higher taxes” as a result of Obama’s fiscal policies. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative group that did the study cited by Romney, calculated the potential impact on different income groups if the U.S. raised taxes to service the national debt. Obama is not planning to raise taxes on the middle class to service the debt any more than Romney says he is.
In its study, AEI calculated the increase in the federal debt under three budget scenarios — including the president’s fiscal year 2013 budget — and then determined the tax burden on 11 income groups if the debt was serviced solely by raising taxes. The other budget scenarios were “current law,” which among other things assumes the Bush-era tax cuts expire for everyone as scheduled at the end of the year, and “current policy,” which assumes the extension of current policies through 2013 — including the Bush tax cuts.
The study itself said Obama’s budget “provides a middle ground between these two extremes.” An AEI blogger wrote an Oct. 2 post that said Obama’s “budget deficits could mean a $4,000 a year middle-class tax hike.” That’s the source of Romney’s claim. The blogger arrives at that figure by combining the potential tax burden already accrued under Obama with the potential tax burden over the next 10 years.
[...]
For more on this, please see “Romney’s $4,000 Tax Tale.”
Yes, I linked to fact check and they took issue with some of President Obama's claims too. I invite you to read through the analysis for yourself.