Only when candidates speak in private do they reveal who they really are and what they really think. Mitt Romney did that in his remarks secretly recorded at a dinner for $50,000 and up donors to his campaign in Boca Raton, Florida, in May. We should not forget what he said to those donors:

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Via Brandywine to Broad

Only when candidates speak in private do they reveal who they really are and what they really think. Mitt Romney did that in his remarks secretly recorded at a dinner for $50,000 and up donors to his campaign in Boca Raton, Florida, in May. We should not forget what he said to those donors:

"There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what....who are dependent on the government, who believe they are victims....These are people who pay no income tax....My job is not to worry about those people....I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Romney has since described his taped comments as "inelegant", but has defended them as reflecting what he apparently believes.

Who are those approximately 47% of households who don't pay federal income tax? A portion of them, about 22%, are retired senior citizens living on Social Security, Medicare, retirement savings, and modest pensions. About 8% are either unemployed or full-time students or disabled, including military veterans. Most of the remaining households that don't pay federal income taxes are simply lower-income families of workers who pay federal payroll taxes on their earnings but don't make enough income to owe federal income tax.

The federal government collects payroll taxes in excess of 15% only on wages earned by labor, so Mitt Romney is exempted from paying payroll taxes to the extent he treats his compensation from Bain Capital as income from capital, either dividends or capital gain. Working families actually pay a higher total rate of federal taxes than Mitt Romney, who has reported paying only 13.9-14.0% federal income tax for the only two years for which he has chosen to release his tax returns.

That low rate of federal income tax means that virtually all of Romney's income is being reported at the capital gains rate which is capped at 15%, unlike the rate on ordinary earned income from labor which is capped at 35%. For 2011 Romney reported adjusted gross income of $13.7 million, none of which was from wages subject to payroll taxes.

Romney has already said he's not worried about the very poor because there's a safety net. And now he says he's not going to worry about the working poor either, or non-contributing retirees or students or the disabled.

Instead Romney will focus on across-the-board cuts in the federal income tax which 47% of households don't pay. The tax cuts he advocates include lowering the rate on capital gains to zero percent, and eliminating entirely the federal tax on the largest decedent's estates, which Romney calls the "death tax". He says he can make the cuts revenue neutral by eliminating unspecified loopholes and deductions, which would increase taxes for unfavored taxpayers. But nobody believes that can actually and politically be done.

The arrogance of the richest man ever nominated to run for president towards working American families ought to be disqualifying. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were right. Romney is indeed the worst possible candidate the Republicans could put up against President Obama.

Romney divides the population into makers and takers, self-made entrepreneurs such as himself, and teeming masses of lazy freeloaders. Born into a wealthy family, educated in private schools, Romney is among those born on third-base but who think they hit a triple.

America applauds and rewards its entrepreneurs, but they achieved their success on the infrastructure, the highways, airports, schools, law enforcement, national defense, courts, and other institutions, including the social safety net, which have been achieved through democratic self-government.

Romney's Ayn Rand-ist vision of America is blind to that reality. We are, in fact, all in this together.

Via Brandywine to Broad

The decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the state's controversial Voter ID law has been much anticipated. So it was disappointing to see the high court punt on the issue and remand the case back to Commonwealth Court which had upheld the law relying on testimony of state officials that it could be implemented by the November 6 election without disenfranchising eligible citizen voters. And it was especially disappointing to see the high court do so by an unsigned per curiam opinion.

In that unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court stated its dissatisfaction "with a mere predictive judgment based primarily on the assurances of government officials". It directed the Commonwealth Court "to consider whether the procedures being used for deployment of the cards comport with the requirement of liberal access which the General Assembly attached to the issuance of PennDOT identification cards. If they do not, or if the Commonwealth Court is not still convinced in its predictive judgment that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth's implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the upcoming election, that court is obliged to enter a preliminary injunction."

Why was the court's decision made per curiam, which is Latin for "by the court"? Usually Supreme Court opinions are signed, so everyone knows which justice wrote the opinion. Per curiam opinions occur most often in cases where the court finds the issues non-controversial, which is certainly not the case with the Voter ID law.

The most glaring example of a per curiam opinion issuing in a controversial case was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore deciding the year 2000 presidential election. Perhaps in that case no justice was willing to sign a hasty and imperfect decision sure to be criticized. And perhaps that's the same reason no justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was willing to sign its Voter ID opinion remanding the case back to the lower court.

Kudos to Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices Debra Todd and Seamus McCaffery who issued clear and impassioned dissenting statements, which they signed.

Justice Todd found that, "the lower court indeed abused its discretion in failing to find that irreparable harm of constitutional magnitude — the disenfranchisement of a substantial number of eligible, qualified, registered voters, many of whom have been proudly voting for decades — was likely to occur based on the present structure, timing, and implementation of" the Pennsylvania Voter ID law.

Justice McCaffery stated that, "I cannot in good conscience participate in a decision that so clearly has the effect of allowing politics to trump the solemn oath that I swore to uphold our Constitution. That Constitution has made the right to vote a right verging on the sacred, and that right should never be trampled by partisan politics."

Via Brandywine to Broad

The decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the state's controversial Voter ID law has been much anticipated. So it was disappointing to see the high court punt on the issue and remand the case back to Commonwealth Court which had upheld the law relying on testimony of state officials that it could be implemented by the November 6 election without disenfranchising eligible citizen voters. And it was especially disappointing to see the high court do so by an unsigned per curiam opinion.

In that unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court stated its dissatisfaction "with a mere predictive judgment based primarily on the assurances of government officials". It directed the Commonwealth Court "to consider whether the procedures being used for deployment of the cards comport with the requirement of liberal access which the General Assembly attached to the issuance of PennDOT identification cards. If they do not, or if the Commonwealth Court is not still convinced in its predictive judgment that there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth's implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the upcoming election, that court is obliged to enter a preliminary injunction."

Why was the court's decision made per curiam, which is Latin for "by the court"? Usually Supreme Court opinions are signed, so everyone knows which justice wrote the opinion. Per curiam opinions occur most often in cases where the court finds the issues non-controversial, which is certainly not the case with the Voter ID law.

The most glaring example of a per curiam opinion issuing in a controversial case was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore deciding the year 2000 presidential election. Perhaps in that case no justice was willing to sign a hasty and imperfect decision sure to be criticized. And perhaps that's the same reason no justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was willing to sign its Voter ID opinion remanding the case back to the lower court.

Kudos to Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices Debra Todd and Seamus McCaffery who issued clear and impassioned dissenting statements, which they signed.

Justice Todd found that, "the lower court indeed abused its discretion in failing to find that irreparable harm of constitutional magnitude — the disenfranchisement of a substantial number of eligible, qualified, registered voters, many of whom have been proudly voting for decades — was likely to occur based on the present structure, timing, and implementation of" the Pennsylvania Voter ID law.

Justice McCaffery stated that, "I cannot in good conscience participate in a decision that so clearly has the effect of allowing politics to trump the solemn oath that I swore to uphold our Constitution. That Constitution has made the right to vote a right verging on the sacred, and that right should never be trampled by partisan politics."

Via Brandywine to Broad

In Mitt Romney's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on September 9, he reiterated his promise of an across-the-board income tax cut for all Americans including those like himself in the top 1%. The Romney-Ryan tax plan actually would cut taxes on income from capital, as opposed to labor, from 15% to 0%.

Romney said those tax cuts would not add to the deficit because they would be offset by eliminating loopholes and deductions. But when asked by NBC's David Gregory which loopholes and deductions he would cut, Romney was unable to name a single one.

After campaigning on the promise to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, Romney announced in the same Meet the Press appearance that, "Well, I'm not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage."

Immediately after the broadcast, the Romney campaign had to clarify its candidate's remarks as not in fact supporting the Affordable Care Act's assurance of health care insurance for Americans with pre-existing conditions. That assurance could only be achieved through the Act's individual mandate requiring that everyone purchase health insurance who can afford to do so.

On Tuesday, September 11, Romney tried to find political advantage in the attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates by saying, "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

Sympathize? What was Romney talking about? Apparently he was criticizing a statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo which had been released before the demonstrations expected in response to an anti-islamic video. The statement said that the U.S. embassy, "condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims..."

After being told that the embassy statement had been issued before the demonstrations and attacks had occurred, Romney denounced President Obama for not defending the filmmakers' free speech rights. "Apology for America's values is never the right course," said Romney.

Apology? Again, what the heck was Romney talking about? After a day of associating himself with the extremist filmmakers preaching hatred of Islam, Romney was forced to eventually denounce them himself, notwithstanding his earlier criticism of President Obama for the administration's criticism of the film.

As President Obama has observed of his Republican opponents, they are "new to foreign policy." Romney's the guy who criticized British preparations for the Olympics while in Britain, and contrasted Palestinian cultural flaws against Israeli financial acumen while in the Middle East. Romney promises a trade war with China from day one of his administration, and identifies Russia, not Al Qaeda, as our Number One enemy.

Romney should not be president of the United States. And fortunately, he won't be.

Via Brandywine to Broad