Mitt Romney’s 13% Tax Rate…

42.5 MILLION = 13% TAX RATE

Mitt Romney’s 13% Tax Rate…

I wish I could avoid hearing anything on the news, because everything I hear is aggravating. This morning, for example, I heard that Mitt Romney, who earned 42.5 million dollars is paying 13% in taxes. He also won’t release previous tax returns, beyond the last two years, because some speculate he paid no taxes at all. It wouldn’t surprise me that someone whose net worth is about 250 million dollars and who made 42.5 million isn’t paying their fair share of taxes, while others, who make a pittance of that amount, pay far more.

Let’s take my older daughter for example. She graduated college three years ago. Fortunately for her, she earned a full scholarship and has no loans to pay back, so all the money she earns is hers to keep…except for taxes. After working three years, she still cannot afford to move out on her own. Why? On her meager salary she pays 25% in taxes. Yes, a single person earning $35,350 or more must pay 25% in taxes. Imagine if she had loans to pay? She would be working for taxes and loans forever. Unless, of course I had $20,000 sitting around to lend her for a business. What sense does this make? How can people ever get out of debt when the rich people don’t pay their fair share?

Check out your bracket, are you paying more than Romney?

Yesterday I read that Romney wants to cut out Pell Grants for Students in order to DECREASE taxes for the rich. In Nebraska, 75 students would lose their grants to pay for one millionaire’s tax cut of $265,000. Pell grants are a maximum of $5,000 per low-income student. It’s based on financial need. It’s to help students and parents who can’t afford tuition costs, so they can get an education and be contributing members of society. So what is the logic in taking away from so many who can ill afford it, to make the rich richer? Now I understand why President Obama called it Romneyhood!

On top of that, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. There is a bill proposed to raise it to $10 an hour. Guess what? Romney sees no need to raise the minimum wage at this time. If not now, when? Romney and his people suggest that they want students to work their way through college and, at the same time, they fight an increase in the minimum wage that would help them do so? And then take away the grants they receive too. How are students supposed to get a college education and be productive citizens when everything is working against them? Even if they manage to graduate, they have loans to pay which may last as long as 30 year mortgages because they are being taxed at a rate of 25%.

Meanwhile, Romney doesn’t want to show us his previous tax returns. Where is all the hoopla demanding he present them like there was for Obama’s birth certificate?  Is he waiting for after the election to show us how little he paid? It might hurt his chances if people were to learn he paid even less than 13% for other years, don’t you think? 

I think this is all appalling. With high unemployment, loans, high tax rates, and low minimum wage, parents will have to take care of and support their adult children for a long time. But don’t worry, at this “rate,” the Romney children will be doing just fine.