CNBC Poll: Are Many Americans Too Dependent on Government?

[10P8TRIOT]

CNBC Poll: GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told a fundraising event earlier this year that “there are 47 percent who are with him (Obama), who are dependent upon the government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them.â€

Do You Agree?

Currently 76% Yes with 33562 votes

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[Oh Shoot]

I agree too many are yes, but no, I don't agree with the exact quoted statement that he doofusly made.

- OS

[oddprimer]

The thing with that quote:

What Mitt is saying is that the 47% are going vote for Obama because, well, free lunch and all.

Turns out that that is bull. If you're on social security you are in the 47%. You paid for that and Mitt is calling you a dependent? You make less than 60,000 a year? Yep, you're in that 47%. You drive a liquor truck or something, eff you, you are on the dole.

What people really don't want is someone who just sits around and does drusg all day to live off the government. Thankfully that isn't a real issue, unless the it is blood pressure medicine,

[bvarnell]

Just so you know, Social Security is not included as earned income.

[xRUSTYx]

Social Security is a Ponzei Scheme ...

The government feels THEY should hold on to YOUR retirement savings .... I'd prefer to keep & invest my own SS benefits, but unfortunately I have no choice

[JohnC]

Yes!

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Maybe he could have worded it differently, but substantively, he is right. SSI is a problem when added to the pool,

but it is part of the problem, with no solution in sight.

It is one of those problems he didn't cause, but will be blamed for if he doesn't get it right. I doubt it will be fixed in

my lifetime.

"Just so you know, Social Security is not included as earned income." You're right, but it doesn't really matter. You're

dealing with taxation, which won't get fixed, either, but it's a separate argument, joined at the hip.

[Transplanted Hoosier]

"The thing with that quote:

What Mitt is saying is that the 47% are going vote for Obama because, well, free lunch and all.

Turns out that that is bull. If you're on social security you are in the 47%. You paid for that and Mitt is calling you a dependent? You make less than 60,000 a year? Yep, you're in that 47%. You drive a liquor truck or something, eff you, you are on the dole.,"

Oddprimer, I beg to differ. He didn't say that at all. If I remember correctly, he said that 47% of the people that are going to vote for Obama are pretty much dependent on the Government ie, welfare, food stamps and anything else they can get out of the taxpayers for free. Social Security was paid into and the majority of the people receiving it are only getting a portion back of what they paid into it. How does driving a liquor truck make you on the dole? I guess according to you the girl working in Mcdonalds is a loser too. At least they are working and not looking for handout.

[Glenn]

I make less than 60,000 a year and I definitely pay taxes.

[Oh Shoot]

Just so you know, Social Security is not included as earned income.

No, but it can be taxable, and worse, reduced because you worked in addition to receiving it, which is also a de facto tax.

Having SS reduced because you work on the side is just one of the many examples of how industry is punished and sloth rewarded in the US.

- OS

[E4 No More]

“there are 47 percent who are with him (Obama), who are dependent upon the government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them.â€

I read it as being in three parts; not that he meant the total 47% met all three things. There are people in the 47% who are dependant upon the government. There are people in the 47% who believe that they are victims. There are people in the 47% that believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them. That kind of defines the left, doesn't it?

[1pointofview]

Romney's delivery of the 47% was a bit off but the concept was right on. I had a friend post on FB about how he was an "undecided" voter but will no way vote for Romney after his remarks which is horse poop. He and his wife are huge obama supporters and though they may be disappointed with obama, they will either vote for him or sit this one out before they for for anything not far left of center.

What Romney was saying is that there is a large portion of the population that depend on the government for entitlements that subsidize a large portion of the population. He was not directly talking about people who pay into a system (that the government demands you pay into). If I pay into something i dang well better get it back. But those who pay nothing in yet get state and federal subsidize to maintain a level of living they are unwilling to sustain on their own is what he was talking about.

[Guest 270win]

You better believe if I was close to retirement and I had contributed 15% of my pay to social security I would be pretty mad if some govt person like Biden got on TV and said "Sorry we just ran out of money, we'll give you an IOU and pay later".

Romney did get it right and wrong. Some people who do not pay income taxes make money from stuff they truly earned that can't be taxed, like Social Security, pensions, Roth IRA's, municpal bonds. A lot of people pay some sort of taxes, like social security, but don't pay income tax.

Then there are some people who have never worked and contributed to the system and get the benefits of the system and never pay taxes, whether it is income or social security. This part is getting more and more common. That is the group I have a problem with, people who haven't paid anything in and are getting the free cell phone, medicine, Section 8 house, food stamps, without ever working.

Edited September 19, 2012 by 270win

[kieefer]

I understood what he was saying and agree with it. You could say the same about a percentage of Oclueless voters, those who are pro-life or anti-gay marriage....oops......please ignore the "gay" word.

We've heard Jimmy Carters grandson found this vid on youtube, I'm waiting for the person who actually recorded it to come forward. That ought to cause another media frenzy so we will ignore what's happening in the ME.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Hell, I paid taxes when I made $ 1.60/hour, so there!

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I understood what he was saying and agree with it. You could say the same about a percentage of Oclueless voters, those who are pro-life or anti-gay marriage....oops......please ignore the "gay" word.

We've heard Jimmy Carters grandson found this vid on youtube, I'm waiting for the person who actually recorded it to come forward. That ought to cause another media frenzy so we will ignore what's happening in the ME.

You're going to get a REPUTATION !

[oddprimer]

"The thing with that quote:

What Mitt is saying is that the 47% are going vote for Obama because, well, free lunch and all.

Turns out that that is bull. If you're on social security you are in the 47%. You paid for that and Mitt is calling you a dependent? You make less than 60,000 a year? Yep, you're in that 47%. You drive a liquor truck or something, eff you, you are on the dole.,"

Oddprimer, I beg to differ. He didn't say that at all. If I remember correctly, he said that 47% of the people that are going to vote for Obama are pretty much dependent on the Government ie, welfare, food stamps and anything else they can get out of the taxpayers for free. Social Security was paid into and the majority of the people receiving it are only getting a portion back of what they paid into it. How does driving a liquor truck make you on the dole? I guess according to you the girl working in Mcdonalds is a loser too. At least they are working and not looking for handout.

Not according to me, according to Mitt. Transplanted Hoosier I value work and work ethic,some work pays more than others and so forth. LEts take a look at the forty seven percent:

The 47% are probably you. How much did you make last year? If you're a senior or a military kind of person or someone with a salary less than 40 grand a year than Romney called you entitled.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking I pay my taxes, I'm not the damn leech. Of course you think that, you work freakin hard. It's that flat black bitch who is moochin all the money. She's driving a god#### cadillac, snorting lobster and pumping out babies for ever more money.

Sorry that's not the problem. The problem is the people who paid into the system and now expect something back. The problem is medicare for those that are 60+. I'll cough up the dough for those because I respect my elders. But, goodness me, I seem to be the only who is willing to pay taxes.

[Links2k]

The 47% are probably you. How much did you make last year? If you're a senior or a military kind of person or someone with a salary less than 40 grand a year than Romney called you entitled.

I agree with your statement. From what some people have told of themselves, there are a lot of 47 percenters on TGO. Luckily or as some would prefer, thanks to my hard work I have not been in that category for over twenty years. I guess it's pretty easy to agree with Mitt if you think that all of the takers are someone else.

Case in point. I'm always puzzled by some of the contractors that I deal with that don't have health insurance either because they say that it's too expensive or their employer does'nt provide it. They have their valid reasons for being against Romney/Obamacare. Yet they have no problem going to the emergency room for any illness that they have and leaving the tab on other tax payers. This person falls into the category that Romney was talking about. This person thinks that Romney was talking about the fat, black welfare queen that was mentioned earlier and this person will definitely vote for Romney in November to keep the boogeyman Kenyan from world dominance.

[Transplanted Hoosier]

"LEts take a look at the forty seven percent:

The 47% are probably you."

Oddprimer, No, the 47% is not me. What he is making reference to is the people who do not pay income tax. Depending on what site you go to, that number goes as high as 49%. Either way, it's still outrageous. I saw the video of Romney on one of the local news stations and I thought the same thing you did until I saw the whole video and read the transcripts.

[TMF]

Hmm... maybe I don't understand the complexities here, but when I was a single Soldier during the Bush administration I absolutely paid taxes, even with the modest paycheck of an E-4 who makes around 1,300 a month in base pay (if I remember correctly). I still paid income tax, getting a return of around $200 from what I paid in, which would have been somewhere in the range of 3K for the year. And then I remember the first time that, not only did I not pay income tax, but I actually got money back from the gov. This was as an E-7 making pretty decent wages. The tax return was due to my being deployed to a tax-free zone for the majority of the year. It was nice, as I put the entire return in our IRAs to make up for the SS that won't be around when I'm older. I did, however, feel pretty guilty for not paying my share. Had the gov required me to pay more in taxes, or had I not qualified for such a return, I would not be upset. I felt, for the first time, like I took something I didn't deserve. Somehow I doubt that many people on the gov teet feel that way. For them it is a sense of entitlement.

I don't know numbers, so I don't know who exactly Romney was referring to. I know that our system is broken though. We are not a society that will allow mothers and their children to sleep on the streets, or our elders to suffer in their final years. But we have to acknowledge that the system allows for very lazy people to take advantage of the rest of us. I don't know what the fix is, but I do know that a system that rewards laziness and pits the non-earners against the earners is a doomed system. We have to acknowledge that. We have to make changes. That means that we're going to have to say things that hurt people's feelings.

I pay a stupid amount in income tax now. I wouldn't have a single problem with the astronomical amount the gov takes if I thought it was being used properly and I wasn't being taken advantage of. It is, after all, my money.

[Glenn]

Romney was referring to the fact that his message of lower taxes doesn't connect with people that don't pay tax. That's the 47%. Not that all that 47% are leeches but there are a lot of them.