October 5, 2012

VIDEO: Paul Ryan’s Version of “47 Percent”—the “Takers” vs. the “Makers”

In rarely seen footage, Romney’s running mate warns about “dependent” Americans who are “takers,” not “makers.”

 

Mitt Romney’s “47 percent,” meet Paul Ryan’s “takers.”

Romney is finally backing off his controversial comments, but the theme that the nation is divided into makers and government-dependent takers is one of long standing for both Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. The GOP vice presidential candidate has repeatedly made statements that suggest he sees America in Ayn Randian terms—that many citizens are just takers, parasites who leech off productive citizens, the makers. As this collection of rarely seen videos shows, this has been a recurrent talking point for Ryan in small gatherings for years.

What Ryan also said about America: “Let’s make this country a tax shelter.”

“Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes,” he said on the June 2010 edition of Washington Watch. “So we’re going to a majority of takers versus makers.” By November 2011, in an address he gave at an American Spectator event, Ryan put the number of takers at 30 percent. (That remark was first reported by Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post.)

Ryan has also warned about President Barack Obama creating “more of a permanent class of government dependents”—language that echoes Romney’s take on the “47 percent who are with [Obama], 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.”

As you can see in this series of charts, “government dependents” aren’t who you necessarily think they are. Many people who don’t pay federal income taxes are superrich or well off. Another 60 percent of Americans who don’t pay income tax are working; they just don’t make enough money to owe taxes. Most of the rest are retired folks, students, and members of the military serving in combat zones.

Full original videos posted by YouTube users (in order of clip appearance):

 

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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