Romney admits he was wrong to write off 47% of the country

By Marc Jampole

 

News flash!

On last night’s “Sean Hannity Show,” Mitt Romney admitted that his comments about “the 47 percent” of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes were “just completely wrong.”

Mitt doesn’t apologize, but he does say he was wrong.  Better late than never.

Romney explains away his harsh and dismissive comment by asserting that during a campaign a candidate says thousands of things and “now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right.”

He never tells us what he meant to say, but did remember to apply several at-a-boy pats to his back: “My life has shown that I care about 100 percent, and that’s been demonstrated throughout my life.”  

Maybe so and maybe no, but we know this much: The tax plan that Mitt has been talking about for the past 18 months and which he may or may not have repudiated in the first presidential debate cares only about the 1% and pretty much screws the other 99%.

I also have to wonder if Romney had another moment of “something not coming out right” in the debate when he said that the healthcare plan which he proposes to replace the Affordable Care Act will protect people with pre-existing conditions.  Yes, he enables people with pre-existing conditions to buy insurance if they had it but lost their job and are willing to pay for it themselves. Anyone else with a pre-existing condition is left holding the bag, unable to get insurance or paying an exorbitant amount for health insurance.

Romney told a lot of lies during the debate, which of course did not count in the scoring done by the pundits who have declared him the winner.  Maybe these were just other moments of “something not coming out right.”  Maybe nothing ever comes out right for Paul Ryan, whose litany of distortions and lies has been well documented.

Or maybe Mitt really meant it when he denigrated 47% of the population to an audience of fat cats last May. After all, the 47% include senior citizens, the poor, children and veterans, all of who benefit from government programs that would be cut or ended to pay for tax cut largesse that Romney wants to bestow on the already wealthy.