Comments on: Seriously, here is why Mitt Romney MUST come clean on his taxes… https://www.habitablezone.com/2012/08/08/seriously-here-is-why-mitt-romney-must-come-clean-on-his-taxes/ Tue, 12 May 2026 20:11:45 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://www.habitablezone.com/2012/08/08/seriously-here-is-why-mitt-romney-must-come-clean-on-his-taxes/#comment-17161 ER Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:03:26 +0000 http://habitablezone.com/?p=19747#comment-17161 As long as Mr Romney has not broken any laws, he is entitled to his millions. If the tax law is rigged to favor the rich at the expense of the poor, we really have no one to blame but ourselves for voting in the legislators who made it all possible. Sure, the Romneys of the world may have spent a lot of money promoting a politics that benfits them at our expense, but the fact remains, no one put a gun to our head and forced us to vote for them. Still, Mr Romney can't have it both ways. If he has relied on questionable and artificial (but legal) means of accumulating his vast fortunes, he cannot claim any special expertise or acumen that give him an advantage in managing the economy to everyone's benefit. Mitt's supporters, like many conservatives and other contemporary Republicans, have mistakenly assumed that the amassing of lots of money is equivalent to conceiving, producing, and marketing a useful product that enriches the entrepreneur, the stockholder, the worker and the customer, and by extension, the country as a whole. It isn't. In a decadent system like ours, it is easier to succeed by manipulating the rules, by gaming the system, than it is by actually competing in the free market. And if you can get away with that without breaking the law, you get bonus points. The man is a very knowlegeable game show contestant. But his ability to come up with answers to trick questions will eventually benefit no one but him, and a few others just like him. As long as Mr Romney has not broken any laws, he is entitled to his millions. If the tax law is rigged to favor the rich at the expense of the poor, we really have no one to blame but ourselves for voting in the legislators who made it all possible. Sure, the Romneys of the world may have spent a lot of money promoting a politics that benfits them at our expense, but the fact remains, no one put a gun to our head and forced us to vote for them.

Still, Mr Romney can’t have it both ways. If he has relied on questionable and artificial (but legal) means of accumulating his vast fortunes, he cannot claim any special expertise or acumen that give him an advantage in managing the economy to everyone’s benefit. Mitt’s supporters, like many conservatives and other contemporary Republicans, have mistakenly assumed that the amassing of lots of money is equivalent to conceiving, producing, and marketing a useful product that enriches the entrepreneur, the stockholder, the worker and the customer, and by extension, the country as a whole. It isn’t.

In a decadent system like ours, it is easier to succeed by manipulating the rules, by gaming the system, than it is by actually competing in the free market. And if you can get away with that without breaking the law, you get bonus points. The man is a very knowlegeable game show contestant. But his ability to come up with answers to trick questions will eventually benefit no one but him, and a few others just like him.

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