Romney claimed to lack elegance in what he was trying to say, which was the problem. I am going to try to more accurately frame what is going on here, and explain maybe make it make more sense.

The 47% comment, makes more sense when connected with what people believe, rather than there state. There is, say around half the people, who believe a nation collectively rises and falls, and is locked into it. They believe that there is mutual dependency, and believe that the government has a role in making this happen. This 47% will NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER vote for Romney. On the other side, you have a core base that believes that individuals rise and fall on their own, and where they are is completely their fault alone. This core base will respond to Romney's message, and NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER vote for the Democrats, because this core sees anything remotely saying people rising and falling together as "Socialism", to any degree. In the middle, is what is battled over. With Romney this is seen as 5-10%, and where the battleground is.

And I would say, this is where the battle lines are in this election. What you see is all about this and that is what it is. What is seen as America's values is becoming defined here. And the question is: Are people where they are because of collective condition of America, or because of themselves alone? This question need not be just one or the other, but can be a mix, although I am sure there is a desire for the political parties to frame it as either/or.

If I am belittling your opinion, it's only because it's a remarkably silly one. "All it would take for Romney to pay 0% income tax is for us to tax his income at 0%! LOLOL!"

And once again, where you were wrong is when you said that Romney is currently paying little to no income taxes at the moment - indicating that you believe that the capital gains tax is not an income tax. It is, and if you've ever seen a tax form you should know this, so you were wrong. It is really quite cringe-inducing to watch someone be so obviously wrong and still deny it, so please, please stop this madness. You don't even have to make a mea culpa or anything. Just stop.

What matters isn't what things are labelled, but what is paid in taxes.  Ok, fine, Romney's capital gains are income.  So, because of who he is, on an upper end, his income is treated at a lower rate than others.  And the point here is that, under what Newt proposed, he would of paid NO income tax.  Do you really want to say what he paid was income taxes?

And a funny thing about Romney, is that apparently he underreported his charitable deductions so that he would pay more taxes... while he is running for president.  He apparently didn't want to get the amount of taxes he paid under 11%:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/romney-campaign-says-he-paid-more-taxes-than-he-ha

Yes, because that's precisely what it is.

What's really funny is we're talking about a guy who paid over a million dollars in income taxes and donated something like $4 million to charity in one year as if he's a hair's breadth away from being one of the moochers all because of some stupid thing Newt Gingrich said, showing just how far removed from reality political discussions tend to become.

And Romney is the one who called him on it.  This entire discussion is going crazy.  The only said answer the GOP has is to figure out where they can cut taxes even more.  The idea also is to make the budget deficit so bad that there will be forced cuts the body politic is opposed to.  And then you now add the 47% on top of this, and it is just a mess here.  Not paying income taxes is now being defined as "being a moocher".  More people DID pay taxes in the past, but they kept reducing the tax rate and knocking people off, in order to lower taxes on the higher end.  It is now, seriously, the GOP is complaining not enough people are paying taxes. 

So what's the problem here? Romney doesn't want cap gains to be 0%, he didn't write the tax code but operates within it as per the law, and like a total moron, he even pays more in taxes than he has to. Attacking him on his personal taxes just reeks of desperation and envy. His 47% comment was off the mark, but while not everyone who doesn't pay income taxes isn't a moocher, there are too many people who are net consumers rather than net contributors and are perfectly happy to be so. Those are the moochers, and whatever his many other problems, Romney is not even close to being one of them.

As far as the GOP cutting taxes without corresponding spending cuts, you're preaching to the choir. I don't think they did it to run up the deficit in order to force spending cuts any more than I think Democrats have spent like crazy in order to run up the deficit to force cuts. They're just behaving like typical politicians, focusing on the short term and paying no mind to the long term. It's no coincidence that both Cheney and Obama have said, "Deficits don't matter," and it's no coincidence that they said so when they were in power.

Several things:

* The entire attacking someone on their taxes has been a mantra floating around.  The "We are the 53%" (other side of the 47%) response to Occupy Wall Street is all about attacking people on the fact they don't pay taxes.  "Skin in the game" is what was floated about also.  

* Romney brought it up to show how daft Newt was for mentioning it.  Unless someone wants to argue that somehow the rich having lower percentage tax rate is a good thing, as in them paying NO income taxes, then Romney did show there is a problem.

* As far as cutting taxes to drive spending cuts, that is called "Starving the beast".  It has been floated around GOP and conservative circles for decades.  The belief is that if you cause the deficit to get severe enough, combine with making raising taxes poison, the government would be forced to slash spending.  You can read more about it here:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/06/tax-cuts-republicans-starve-the-beast-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

Let's be honest....... both don't care about anyone but the people who pay them and themselves.

Starving the beast has for a long time now been an idea that only really thrives among conservatives out of power (i.e., pundits). It's an idea certain politicians may recklessly invoke from time to time, but it's entirely rhetorical. Were the Bush tax cuts done out of a Machiavellian attempt to starve the beast? Or were they done because he'd inherited an economy on the brink of recession and tax cuts are generally popular, so why not? If it was the former, it certainly didn't work because the Republicans controlled all the levers of power and what did they do? They passed Medicare Part D.

When Republicans do something stupid and destructive, it isn't because they're evil super geniuses. It's because they're idiots.

Even the GOP is running on how the Democrats want to cut funding to Medicare.  As it is now, the body politic really doesn't want budget cuts.  So, it ends up to be folly.  But the idea is there, as one of the rationales for pushing budget cuts, very likely discussed among those who want to advocate smaller government, to rationalize the tax cuts, even when they aren't matched with budget cuts, because the belief is that a crisis will eventually happen.