Home / Elections /

Romney: 47 percent of voters ‘dependent upon government’

By on September 18, 2012 3:00 pm / 5 comments

 

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney finds himself in hot water after a video of him calling nearly half of the American electorate “dependent upon government” surfaced Monday.

The video, leaked in full by Mother Jones, a liberal-leaning online magazine, shows Romney speaking to a room of 30 donors at a closed-door, $50,000 per-plate dinner fundraiser at the Boca Raton, Fla., home of private equity manager Marc Leder on May 17. Most of the footage is blurred to protect the identities of those at the dinner.

Romney said voters who support President Barack Obama are “entitled,” and therefore have no choice but to vote for him and other Democrats.

“There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it,” Romney said. “That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”

Romney, apparently at ease in the video and displaying his rarely seen but well-documented sense of humor, said that same group does not pay federal income taxes.

“Our message of low taxes doesn’t connect,” he said.

The former Massachusetts governor said he does not have to concern himself with winning them over.

“My job is not to worry about those people,” Romney said. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Romney defended the comments in front of reporters Monday night.

“It’s not elegantly stated,” Romney said. “I’m speaking off the cuff in response to a question.”

He said he does not give different messages to donors behind closed doors than he does to the public.

“We have a very different approach, the president and I, between a government-dominated society and a society driven by free people pursuing their dreams,” Romney said.

The Obama campaign called their opponent’s remarks “shocking.”

“It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement.

The video was available online in short clips for months now, but it did not become major political news until the full video was posted online by Mother Jones’ David Corn. According to New York magazine, James Carter IV, the grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, found the uploader of the clips and got him in contact with Corn.

Carter spends his time doing opposition research on Republicans and hopes to be hired to do research soon.

“I’ve been searching for clips on Republicans for a long time, almost every day,” Carter told New York. “I just do it for fun.”

 
 
 

5 Comments

  1. michmediaperson says:
    September 18, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    What happens with the 47 percent when the country goes bankrupt and there isn’t any money to give to them?
    Then, what????
    Struggling corporations and the Salt Lake City Olympics were in the same dismal situation…..but Mitt Romney came in, turned it around and gave people jobs and Olympic performances America will always remember.
    All those people thrown out of work by Obama who are in the 47 percent group, they want Mitt elected president so he can create good-paying PRIVATE sector jobs so they can be productive taxpayers. They don’t want temporary Government jobs or hamburger-flipping jobs Obama is offering. College grads don’t want to move back home with mom and dad like Obama is forcing them to do.
    Seniors in the 47 percent group are scared to death because Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Stabenow stole 716 billion dollars of Medicaid money to pay for Obamacare. Seniors will now get inferior healthcare.
    Who are the suckers? You college kids. High tuition costs! Big college debts! No jobs! Have to move back home to your bedroom! Will never see a penny of social security. Just think, in another 10 years, you’re subsidizing me!!!! No medicare. That’s going broke in 12 years! An Obama foreign policy that is seeing American embassies attacked in more than 20 countries.
    Obama and his clown vice-president have no clue how to get this country turned around. And, now Obama is printing money which will hurt us even more in a few years.
    The joke is on you young people. Obama has put this country into such a deep hole financially, we will never work ourselves out of it if he’s around another 4 years. Mitt can get it turned down.
    You young people should re-think about voting for Obama-Biden. You think things are bad now, wait for how bad things would be by 2016. There’s a good movie out right now, 2016. You may want to go see it.

    Reply
    • not a michmediamoron says:
      September 19, 2012 at 8:36 am

      Unsurprising. Yet another pack of lies and distortions from you.

      “Salt Lake City Olympics were in the same dismal situation…..but Mitt Romney came in, turned it around”
      By seeking out and acquiring millions of dollars of federal funding. Oops.

      “All those people thrown out of work by Obama who are in the 47 percent
      group, they want Mitt elected president so he can create good-paying
      PRIVATE sector jobs so they can be productive taxpayers.”
      According to you, Mitt’s a liar. He says they’re with Obama, and he stands by what he said.

      “Seniors in the 47 percent group are scared to death because Obama,
      Pelosi, Reid and Stabenow stole 716 billion dollars of Medicaid money to
      pay for Obamacare.”
      According to you, Mitt’s a liar. Plus, the “stealing billions from Medicare” accusation is not only bullshit, but Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver that Romney chose as his running mate, included the exact same feature in his “serious” budget.

      Romney’s reaction to diplomatic personnel being murdered: attempting to score political points and smirking about it. Who wants a sociopathic dick with no self-awareness for president? Romney’s your man.

      And so on.

      Reply
    • Jack Mehoff says:
      September 23, 2012 at 5:57 am

      wow.

      you are an idiot.

      Reply
  2. michmediaperson says:
    September 20, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    Paging Obama fans. Check-out cnn.com
    and read the story “Federal Reserve Policy Favor the Rich.”
    What Obama and the Fed did last week makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
    Wake-up! Obama is not for the middle-class and poor. Even a liberal, mainstream CNN admits to it.
    Read the story. Romney was against the Federal Reserve doing this since Mitt once to help the struggling middle-class and help the poor.

    Reply
 
 

Leave a Comment

 





 
 

 
 
 


Advertise with Us! | Contact Us | About Us | Join CM-Life's Staff