The fact is though conceptually the idea that taxing "freeloaders" who are earning maybe 30-40k a year at best is going to fix the debt is asinine.

The only way you're going to pay down the debt is if mega-wealthy individuals and corporations start paying their fair share of tax.

Everyone wants to close loopholes, but they get lobbied out of doing so. It's a nice line for elections that amounts to jack all.

so what did he say that was so controversial or incorrect?
am i missing something, that seemed like a true statement to me.
well i guess it is dishonest because its actually 49%. lol

You're not going to fix the debt by raising taxes at all. It's mathematically impossible. There aren't nearly enough rich people whom you can tax to close the gap, and even doubling taxes on everyone who makes more than $50,000 a year won't do it. Spending has to be cut, it's as simple as that.

You'd have to do both. And you'd have to cut the military budget (which is ridiculously massive) in the process. But no one wants to say that.

There is an inherit irony in though in Romney crapping on low income people, when he's hiding his wealth in the Caman Islands to keep in from being taxed. This guy is supposedly going to close tax loopholes for the super-wealthy? Yeah right.

People like that are the ones who are in all honesty are withholding the real money, not the average joe who's scraping by on 30k/year.

Maybe that guy earning 30k/year who gets on disablity is a "freeloader". But y'know the guy who's worth 100 million who's got offshore accounts to avoid tax ... lets call him for what he is too -- a "crook".

Attacking Romney as unserious because he wants to restore the sequestration cuts to military spending would be a legitimate point, but it's one no one seems interested in pursuing. Probably because it's very politically problematic. But again, since there is nowhere near enough money to be raised by any tax hike, it seems silly to even dwell on it as much as we do. You cannot close the deficit by raising taxes, while you can close it entirely by cutting spending - although doing so would require a lot of cuts that are, again, politically problematic.

Cut what exactly?

The "cut spending" rhetoric is equally bankrupt IMO. A welfare program or programs that help out low income single moms (for example) is not what's causing the bleeding in the first place. The funding for these programs is a drop in the bucket.

The military, social security, and medicare are the big three. No politician has the balls to serious cut any of those, and really maybe they shouldn't.

Because it's nonsense that everyone who receives any form of government handout is a lost cause who will always vote Democrat no matter what.

As the OP points out, how many of those are senior citizens? And senior citizens overwhelmingly favour Romney.

Are you saying that Social Security and Medicare aren't a form of welfare? They certainly are. People are drawing out far more than they ever paid in, and it is redistributing money from one group (younger, poorer people) to another (older, richer people).

That's exactly right, but that's not the argument that's being made here. In fact, I don't even see any argument being made. It's just, "Look at what that Mitt Romney said now! It's so self-evidently stupid and evil that we're not even going to talk about why!"