Harry Reid: Mitt Is Not The Face Of Mormonism

[_Kishkumen]

It does not excuse the professors IRA comment. He know damn well gains in IRAs have no basis in computing someone's current effective rate. He knows that ALL this income will be taxed at much HIGHER ordinary rates when it is removed from the IRA. He know is must start being removed when Romney turn 70.5 and that the annual amount that Romeny will have to remove form the IRA will likely be large due the the minimum distribution rules. He knows this. To use gains in an IRA as an example that Romney really paid a lower rate than 15% or 20 % is disingenuous at best. I am surprised that you see it some other way. If I made this argument my associates would think I was rather foolish.

Jason is absolutely correct on the facts here. The professor is twisting the facts in a manner he knows is irresponsible to score political points and that bothers me.

Look, there are many things to criticize Romney for, but he didn't break the law and implying that he somehow cheated and should have paid more taxes than he was obligated to pay is ridiculous. I certainly don't pay a dime more than I am obligated to pay and I don't know anyone eager to pony up more for the government.

Now, if you want to talk about the fairness of the tax code, then we can have some legitimate arguments. The reason Romney does not want to release prior tax returns is because they so clearly highlight many existing inefficiencies in the tax code (especially cap gains treatment for carried interest). Romney (and his party) does not want to highlight or fix any of these rules, or have them become part of the debate this year. Again, the point is not that Romney violated the law or cheated the government. The point is that the tax code is bloated, inefficient and in my opinion simply unfair in many respects. But I don't begrudge anyone or call them a cheater for following the letter of the law as it currently stands.

The problem we are having here is that neither of you are legal academics and you haven't the foggiest clue where Brian Galle is coming from. I happen to have the advantage of both knowing Brian personally and being familiar with his other work. Galle is not contending that what Mitt has done is illegal. He knows the law better than either one of you fine fellows. What he does is pose the question, as he has done in the past with the LDS Church's tax exempt status, of whether the law as it stands is in everyone's best interests and equitable.

Law academics are not required to treat the standing law and the behavior that it legitimizes as sacrosanct and thus above criticism.

So, fulminate all you like, but you are talking out of your asses.

Oh, and I would like for you to point out where Galle said that Mitt had cheated on his taxes.

Thanks in advance.

[_Cicero]

The problem we are having here is that neither of you are legal academics and you haven't the foggiest clue where Brian Galle is coming from. I happen to have the advantage of both knowing Brian personally and being familiar with his other work. Galle is not contending that what Mitt has done is illegal. He knows the law better than either one of you fine fellows. What he does is pose the question, as he has done in the past with the LDS Church's tax exempt status, of whether the law as it stands is in everyone's best interests and equitable.

Law academics are not required to treat the standing law and the behavior that it legitimizes as sacrosanct and thus above criticism.

So, fulminate all you like, but you are talking out of your asses.

Oh, and I would like for you to point out where Galle said that Mitt had cheated on his taxes.

Thanks in advance.

You said he was a tax cheat Kish, not Galle. And do you really think legal academics know the law better than practicing lawyers?

[_Kishkumen]

You said he was a tax cheat Kish, not Galle.

That is correct, and I stand by my statement. I know very well that a number of tax shelters amount to giant byzantine contraptions that are little more than dares for the government to waste its meager IRS resources on. I call that cheating in spirit, and the only thing that prevents it from becoming cheating in fact is that none of the appropriate authorities have caught up with it yet.

And do you really think legal academics know the law better than practicing lawyers?

Not all of them, but, yes, some do.

[_Droopy]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/54958981-90/romney-reid-mormonism-prince.html.csp

Odd, because everything I've read about Romney from people who have known and worked with him much of their lives, regarding both his personal integrity and substantial service to the Church and other human beings in that capacity says exactly the opposite, and calls Brother Reid's moral bearings and intellectual hingedness into question to an ever increasing extent.

Reid, as probably the other most public Mormon political figure in America, has just about painted himself as far into an ethical corner as he can go, and at this point his personal moral self immolation has progressed to the point that no LDS that I am personally acquainted with would want to be seen with him.

Brother Reid threw the Church under the bus long ago, in my estimation, for his own political career and the fortunes and power of his party. He has thrown in his lot as a professional politician with the Left, and in so doing, made a choice between the Church and his politics inevitable. Its becoming clear that he's already made that choice and made peace with it.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Odd, because everything I've read about Romney from people who have known and worked with him much of their lives, regarding both his personal integrity and substantial service to the Church and other human beings in that capacity says exactly the opposite, and calls Brother Reid's moral bearings and intellectual hingedness into question to an ever increasing extent.

Reid, as probably the other most public Mormon political figure in America, has just about painted himself as far into an ethical corner as he can go, and at this point his personal moral self immolation has progressed to the point that no LDS that I am personally acquainted with would want to be seen with him.

Brother Reid threw the Church under the bus long ago, in my estimation, for his own political career and the fortunes and power of his party. He has thrown in his lot as a professional politician with the Left, and in so doing, made a choice between the Church and his politics inevitable. Its becoming clear that he's already made that choice and made peace with it.

Things have gone from bad to worse for Romney if he's getting moral support from people like Droopy.

[_Droopy]

Things have gone from bad to worse for Romney if he's getting moral support from people like Droopy.

Who will you be voting for this year, Bluff?

[_Kishkumen]

Things have gone from bad to worse for Romney if he's getting moral support from people like Droopy.

Being praised or criticized by Droopy has exactly the opposite effect he intends by it--for good reasons.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Who will you be voting for this year, Bluff?

Mitt Romney. I'm a registered and active Republican and plan on voting for my party's nominee.

And stop calling me "Bluff." It just makes you look even more ridiculous.

[_Droopy]

Who will you be voting for this year, Bluff?

Mitt Romney.

Why?

[_Bob Loblaw]

Why?

I think Obama's foreign policy has been a disaster, but it can't hold a candle to his fiscal policy, if one can call it that. We spent money on a stimulus that put money we didn't have not into things that would actually stimulate the economy but instead into public-sector jobs and pensions, plus businesses friendly with the administration. We bailed out Wall Street (Bush's fault, too) and Detroit. It's ironic that they claim they "saved" jobs in the auto industry when all they did was ensure that GM and Chrysler did not have to reform and become more competitive. They say Romney would have allowed them to go bankrupt, but they did go bankrupt, except the taxpayers are on the hook to preserve inefficient, noncompetitive companies.