Mitt Romney is the New Normal

And then the liberal guy gets really agitated and says to
the normal guy,"That's what I said, Tax Cuts for the Rich!"

Mitt Romney won the first debate.   It's not so much that I could not join in the all the fun broadcast over conservative radio.  It was not so much that Mitt had so much better forensic skills honed from private school debate teams clubs or being a door to door religion salesman.  It was not so much that President Obama, perhaps nervous at the prospect of his first debate in four years, took one too many Xanax and transformed cool and collected into stolid and soporific.  It was that no one seemed to appreciate that the most significant thing about this debate was the emergence of the new and normal Mitt.  No longer was he the craven plutocrat at the mercy of his billionaire benefactors and completely out of the mainstream who was caught whining about how millionaires aren't properly coddled like the 47% of free-loading Americans.  This first debate was America's first chance to meet the Mitt Normal.

How normal is Mitt.  Read on!

I.  Middle class Mitt knows the rich don't need a tax cut.  Come on!

Romney seemed thunderstruck that anyone, most of all the President, would think that anyone, most of all Mitt, would have any plan as crazy as reducing taxes on the rich.  Where in the world did anyone come up with that idea?  Answer:  the liberal spin doctors who had promulgated the lie that Mitt Romney, in what little of an economic plan that he has, was eager to lower the tax rate of the wealthiest Americans.  Character assassination.  Slander.  Don't you believe it for one second.  Mitt has no interest in making the lives of the excessively affluent any better than they already are.  In what might be this year's "Read my lips.  No new taxes!"  Romney has made it clear, "It doesn't matter what I said yesterday.  Trust me today: no tax cuts for the really rich!"


The normal Mitt made this point at least five times during the debate.  

And the answer is, yes, we can help, but it's going to take a different path, not the one we've been on, not the one the president describes as a top-down, cut taxes for the rich. That's not what I'm going to do.

My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy.

And finally, with regards to that tax cut, look, I'm not looking to cut massive taxes and to reduce the -- the revenues going to the government. My -- my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.

But I do want to reduce the burden being paid by middle-income Americans. And I -- and to do that, that also means I cannot reduce the burden paid by high-income Americans. So any -- any language to the contrary is simply not accurate.

Number two, I will not reduce the share paid by high-income individuals. I know that you and your running mate keep saying that and I know it's a popular thing to say with a lot of people, but it's just not the case. Look, I've got five boys. I'm used to people saying something that's not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I'll believe it. But that -- that is not the case. All right? I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.

OK.  So a lot of us have really gotten the wrong idea of Mitt.  We had characterized this wild and crazy tax-cutter who was going to reduce tax rates for the millionaires so that they could continue the dumping of that magnanimous economic rainfall on the less deserving

We are giving you a collective apology.  We got that ludicrous idea from what you told us. We will never get you wrong again.


And Mitt gave us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Brain Romney when he told us how he wasn't going to reduce the tax rate for the wealthy.


Number two, let's look at history. My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working.


So Mitt is not going to reduce taxes for the wealthiest Americans by a new approach:  lowering the taxes for the wealthiest Americans.  

This has the feel of those great mystery novels or movies we love where the solution is the last thing we would ever suspect:  because we are not the super-sleuths like Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple or Hercules Poiret or Mitt Romney.   

We trust you now.  Don't bother giving us the details of these exemptions and loopholes.  You probably know all of them a lot better than we would, having used them and created them in your former life as a financial detective posing as an entrepreneur.

We promise not to listen to the facts.  Facts are for the inane and prosaic, not for super sleuths.  Like that fact that the plan you have been touting in reality would provide the very richest Americans a $264,000 tax break; or would current tax rates on investments that are otherwise set to expire at the end of the year; or would eliminate the estate tax, paid by only the richest 1/4 of 1% of Americans.   Or that even if we can hypothesize these loopholes and exemptions it would be mathematically impossible to keep the wealthiest Americans from receiving excessive tax breaks according to the Tax Policy Center.  These purveyors of facts do not understand the world where super-econo- heroes are more than willing and able to do the impossible.

II.  Businessman Mitt knows businesses need regulations.  Duh!

The President and, I must confess, many of his supporters forgot that Mitt has been a businessman all his life, even when in utero, when God was building Mitt's genetic code.  Why would we think that he would be adverse to federal government regulations.  Where in the world did we get that idea?  We again must apologize for misconstruing your past denunciations of regulation as the death of American business.  You know better than we do, and we know you better now that you are normal.  You certainly gave us a good example of the need for regulations during the debate.

Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation. As a businessperson, I had to have -- I need to know the regulations. I needed them there. You couldn't have people opening up banks in their -- in their garage and making loans. I mean, you have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work. Every free economy has good regulation. At the same time, regulation can become excessive.

You are so right.  The last thing we want in this country that is so free enterprise gaga, so laissez-faire wacko, so capitalism or bust, is a bunch of vigilante entrepreneurs opening up banks in their garages and making loans.  In fact, if not for federal regulations on business which, according to the normal Mitt,  do not hamper making money but direct it, we might have an epidemic in which two-car garages, purportedly built for the safe harbor of two cars, who knows who is giving out loans willy-nilly to whom knows whom-- a favorite neighbor, a son's baseball coach.  And what next?  Would the so-called bank manager get it into his greedy head to use his children as innocent victims in his thirst for easy money and open up a lemonade stand where borrowers' thirsts would be refreshed over and over again while awaiting the garage-board decision on their loan request.  

III.  Empathetic Mitt knows individuals not government help the “less fortunate” God Bless us Everyone!


And we thought you just didn't care about the little people.  Now we know.  It's not assistance for the worthless that you are against, it's having government do it.  Governments unlike corporations are not people.  They are cold.  There is certainly nothing like the sympathy that comes only through the human touch, no reassuring words like "You know, I am unemployed too!  Have been since running for President."  Now we understand.  Our government is not really we the people.  We are we the people-- when we do "we the people things" like attending root-beer soirees, flying off to one of our vacation homes, setting up IRS-proof trust funds for our kids.  That's when we are really helping out. 

We are endowed by our creator with our rights...we are endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness as we choose. I interpret that as, one, making sure that those people who are less fortunate and can't care for themselves are cared by -- by one another.

We're a nation that believes that we're all children of the same god and we care for those that have difficulties, those that are elderly and have problems and challenges, those that are disabled. We care for them. And we -- we look for discovery and innovation, all these things desired out of the American heart to provide the pursuit of happiness for our citizens.

You are so right empathetic and altruistic Mitt to point out on several occasions during  the debate that 1 out of 6 people in poverty, 47 million on food stamps.   We are not acting appropriately if we pause for a minute and think that according to your definition of we the people this overabundance of the less fortunate should be impossible, that if we the people naturally care for each other so much so that the government need not hang around, then why is anyone on food stamps, why is anyone poor?  Wouldn’t the free-spirited American who pursues his own happiness naturally gravitate toward helping out his fellow man-- a no-interest loan?  a job?  a rent-free apartment?  Those who think this way are like those annoying people who cannot enjoy a good movie because they keep finding flaws in the plot.  Sometimes it is right to just go with the flow.  Enjoy.  Listen to Mitt.

IV.  Tax Filing Mitt Knows There's no Reason to Outsource


Although we haven't seen many of Mitt Romney's tax returns, that is no reason not to think he has no idea what they entail.  He's been finding loopholes for years in his quest to understand that crazy money-grabbing mind of the so-called entrepreneur.  If there were any tax incentive for moving businesses out of the United States wouldn't the super -duper financial sleuth have sniffed it out?   Again we have been so wrong believing the facts that he has moved American businesses out of America through his private equity firm to reap any sort of financial gain.  Then again we used to think that Mitt Romney was the guy who wanted to make money and lots of it.  Let normal Mitt speak for himself why don't I?

The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.

Some people still want us to backtrack (I thought it was about moving forward) and listen to the old Mitt:

"Big business is doing fine in many places - they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses."

But that was way back in August, so many Mitts ago.  If you are going to bring that up, why not start talking about ways to streamline the Pony Express?

The fact that there is a feature in the US Tax Code called “deferral” that allows U.S. corporations to defer the kind of taxes they pay on domestic profits indefinitely on anything made on foreign profits.  Whenever the income is “repatriated,” or brought back to the United States, corporations are allowed a credit for foreign taxes paid.   At least that's what Seth Hanlon wrote at Center for American Progress Action Fund, July 16, 2012.  Who invited him to the party?


And then there is always some party-pooper economist like Martin Sullivan of Tax Analysts who wants to chime in with a big bundle of facts.  
Under current law, if an American corporation opens a factory in Indiana, the profits of that factory are subject to the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate. If the same corporation instead opens a similar factory in Ireland, the profits from that factory are subject to a 12.5 percent tax rate [Ireland’s corporate tax rate]. If that factory generates a profit of $100, the choice is between an after-tax profit of $65 in the United States and $87.50 in Ireland. Obviously, U.S. tax law provides a large tax advantage for building and moving factories to low-tax countries

Heroes don't come out of cumbersome economic books or tax codes.  Look, whenever we hear anyone quoting something in context or giving specifics statistics or facts about anything meant to undermine Mitt's character by telling the truth, all we need say is simply, "Mitt knows!"

President Obama is certainly going to have his hands full now that his opponent is a normal one.  Only if I were he, I wouldn't get too used to the new normal Mitt lest he show up at the next debate with a beard and pony tail talking about environmental rights and vegetarianism.  Keep 'em guessing Mitt!!