Call Me Irresponsible

Irresponsible Moochers?

Mitt Romney has declared 47% of us to be slackers mooching off the federal government, and therefore "irresponsible." I know that I am one of the God-forsaken irresponsible Americans Mitt has decided he doesn't care about, and I am happy about that because I find I am in good company.

You too might be an "irresponsible" moocher if:

• you are fighting for our country in Afghanistan
• your husband or wife lost his/her life in Iraq
• you were seriously wounded in one of Bush's wars
• you are a senior and you are collecting the Social Security you paid for
• your spouse was foolish enough to loose a life trying to rescue people from the collapsing World Trade Center
• you had a catastrophic illness that depleted your life's savings
• you and your spouse lost jobs that your corporation exported to Asia
• you are a college student with a dream, but lack wealthy parents
• you are a teacher, policeman, fireman or EMS worker
• you are on Medicare, a program you paid into
• you have had the misfortune of having a child with a birth defect
• you were born on the wrong side of the tracks
• you work for an agency that protects the environment
• you were evicted from a home you had made payments on for 20years
• you are a scientist working on an NSF grant
• you survived Katrina
• you are an undocumented child
• you can't afford to attend a private school
• you are cared for at a Veteran's hospital

On the other hand,  if you are a millionaire who doesn't pay federal income tax and also receive government contracts or millions in agricultural"subsidies," you are a responsible citizen in Romney's book.  ( Notice the Republican terminology.  If a poor mother gets a few government dollars, it's "welfare," if a millionaire farmer or large corporation receives millions of government dollars, it's called a "subsidy.")

Thr IRS reports that many millionaires and huge corporations pay no Federal Income Taxes.  Romney asks us to believe that he is not one of those tax dodgers, but he refuses to release his tax returns to prove that. He wants us to take his word for it. I guess I would do that if he then believes I am as intelligent as Stephen Hawking, the gifted British theoretical physicist. (But now that I think about it, Mitt would probably consider Dr. Stephen Hawking "irresponsible."-- paralyzed, confined to a wheel chair and subsidized by British government grants.)