WASHINGTON — Arkansas Republicans on Tuesday said their presidential nominee could have chosen his words better when he wrote off almost half of the American electorate, but they said Mitt Romney was right to criticize those who pay no income taxes and receive government assistance.
In a surreptitiously recorded video released Monday, Romney told well-heeled supporters at a Florida fundraiser that President Barack Obama can count on capturing at least 47 percent of the vote in November.
“There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” Romney said. “These are people who pay no income tax. ... I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
After Mother Jones magazine released the video of the May fundraiser, leading Democrats — and a few Republicans — condemned the former Massachusetts governor’s comments.
But Romney’s Arkansas supporters downplayed the significance of the remarks.
“He shouldn’t have put it the way he put it, but it is a fact: 47 percent of the people don’t pay federal income tax in the country,” said Warren Stephens Jr., co-chairman of Romney’s “Arkansas State Finance leadership team” and one of the world’s 500 wealthiest men, according to Forbes magazine.
Stephens, chief executive officer of Stephens Inc., said Romney didn’t make similar remarks at a $50,000-per-couple August dinner in Little Rock that raised more than $2 million.
“From my perspective, people try to make this divisive. Look, the divisive element in this election is the Democratic Party,” Stephens said, adding that he thinks the divisive rhetoric has been “taken to a whole new level by President Obama.”
“I mean it’s always, ‘We’re going to tax the rich, we’re going to tax the rich,’” Stephens said.
Stephens said Romney’s remarks reflect his focus on the small number of undecided voters.
“There is a core of support for President Obama, there is a core of support against President Obama and [Romney] has got to focus on the middle. I don’t think that’s any different, frankly, than what President Obama is doing or what any candidate has done ... in the last three or four elections.”
Romney is concerned about the middle class, which faces a ballooning federal debt, fewer good jobs and a “diminished country, a diminished economy,” Stephens said. Romney has told big-money donors that he’s not worried about their prospects, Stephens added.
“He said something to that effect when he was here. He’s not just talking to the donors, because that’s not who he is concerned about. He’s concerned about the middle class in this country and, to tell you the truth, that’s where he ought to be focused.”
Stephens said he didn’t think Romney’s remarks would affect the presidential race in Arkansas.
“I don’t think so. ... In my view, it’s not going to have legs in Arkansas. I just don’t think people are really going to care about that,” Stephens said.
Stephens is one of three people leading Romney’s Arkansas’ fundraising team.
Claiborne Deming, the former Murphy Oil CEO and another Romney state finance co-chairman, just arrived back in the country Tuesday and hadn’t had a chance to read the news reports about Romney’s comments, said a person who answered the phone at his office.
The third Romney finance team co-chairman, John Tyson, CEO of Tyson Foods Inc., was unavailable for comment, a company official said.
Arkansas’ U.S. Reps. Steve Womack and Rick Crawford declined to comment. Rep. Mike Ross had a family member in the hospital and was unavailable, a spokesman said. Sen. John Boozman, the state’s top-elected Republican, said Romney was making a good point in the speech, but “he did it in a very clumsy way.”
Boozman said Vice President Joe Biden also has had missteps on the campaign trail.
Biden drew criticism for telling a mostly black Virginia audience in August that Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains.”
Boozman surmised that on the day Romney made the remarks, he was probably tired from a hectic campaign schedule, and when he reached the fundraiser he found a relaxed atmosphere.
In such situations, Boozman said, “you just start rambling.”
Arkansas’ U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, chairman of the Romney campaign in Arkansas, said the nominee was attempting to make a broader point about the need to broaden the tax base, a point “that he didn’t craft in an artful way.”
Griffin, a Little Rock Republican, said Romney’s goal of overhauling the tax code would be received better by people who pay taxes and have “skin in the game.”
“His point was that with limited time and resources, when you’re targeting voters, people who don’t pay any income taxes are going to be less interested in reforming the tax code,” Griffin said.
Under the current tax code, too many people are able to avoid paying income taxes, he said.
“The point is not that no one should be in that category,” said Griffin. “The point is that it shouldn’t be half.”
Tom Cotton, the Republican nominee for Congress in the state’s 4th District, said he hasn't seen the Romney video, and “I don’t really have a comment on it.”
Cotton said he’s got a race to run, and “if I spent all my time being a pundit for everything Mitt Romney and Barack Obama did, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.”
Arkansas’ U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat, called Romney’s comments “belittling.”
“In Arkansas, we have hundreds of thousands of people in this exact same boat. They’re doing everything they can to improve their position, and it seems like the governor [Romney] writes them off,” Pryor said.
With 38.8 percent of the 1,224,333 returns in the state showing zero federal income tax liability, according to the conservative Tax Foundation, Arkansas ranked fifth in the nation in the percentage of tax returns filed that didn’t require tax payments.
Thousands more make so little money that they’re not even required to file tax returns.
College students, the working poor, lower-income retirees and even new military recruits are among those less likely to owe income taxes.
The tax code allows for the use of many different combinations of tax credits, exclusions and deductions that can allow taxpayers to reduce their tax liabilities to zero.
Of the 47 percent of tax filers who do not owe federal income tax, 44 percent are freed from payments because they use tax breaks for the elderly, according to a 2011 study by the Tax Policy Center, a joint research organization of the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute, both liberal Washington groups.
Those breaks or benefits include an extra standard deduction for the elderly, the exclusion from tax of a portion of their Social Security benefits, and tax credits for the elderly.
The study found that 30.4 percent of filers did not incur tax liabilities because they used credits for children and the working poor, such as the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, welfare cash transfers and food stamp payments.
The study found that tax filers from lower incomes tended to escape tax liability in higher proportions. For instance 99.4 percent of filers earning less than $10,000 a year and 80.8 percent of filers with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000 a year didn’t pay income taxes in 2011.
Significant portions of other income groups, however, didn’t pay — 30.6 percent of filers with annual incomes between $40,000 and $50,000 and 14.4 percent of filers with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000.
Max Richtman, president of the left-leaning National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said he had spoken with some of his group’s members who were “outraged” over Romney’s remarks.
“He’s talking about almost half of Americans and describing them basically as freeloaders who would rather be in a hammock somewhere than be gainfully employed,” Richtman said.
Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Families Association, said many types of payments for service members, including hazardous-duty pay, income earned while serving in a combat zone and housing allowances are tax-free.
She and a Department of Defense spokesman didn’t know how many members of the military do not have tax liabilities, but said the combination of the U.S. tax code and military compensation rules made it likely that many servicemen do not pay. The base taxable pay for an E-5 enlisted man — a U.S. Army sergeant — is $29,853.12 a year.
Asked whether Romney’s comments disparaged the military, Raezer replied “I would not want to go there.”
Hal Bass, an Ouachita Baptist University political scientist, said Romney’s comments will be forgotten by Election Day. “I think it’s most unlikely to be any kind of game changer in Arkansas. I don’t think there is very good evidence out there that gaffes in and of themselves tend to shift poll numbers in any dramatic fashion,” Bass said.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/19/2012