Letters: Mitt Romney, meet the 47%

Re “Romney belittles Obama voters in video,” Sept. 18

I am one of those voters who strongly supports President Obama. I now understand what Mitt Romney thinks of me.

Because my income is significantly less than $200,000, I am not part of the middle class. The taxes I pay at a 28% rate are so inconsequential as to not count at all. And because I want strong public schools to create an educated workforce, a healthcare system that will maintain a healthy populace, good highways, infrastructure, libraries and parks, I am a citizen with a victimization mentality who wants nothing more than government handouts.

If Romney did not mean this, he certainly owes me and the millions like me an apology.

Barbara Motz

Valley Village

Romney has nothing to apologize for. He spoke to a dedicated group of supports who, like many in this country, realize that half the people here are paying taxes and the other half are spending them. He is not the first to point out this dangerous trend. Former Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) presented the same argument in Time magazine last year.

Instead of denigrating a candidate who made his way in the world and wants to help others do the same, we should look back over the last 31/2 years and ask why so many people in this country are on the dole.

Arthur Christopher Schaper

Torrance

Apparently Romney doesn’t understand how the tax structure works. It’s true that about 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income tax, but they do pay taxes on gasoline, utilities and clothing, and they pay into Social Security and Medicare.

Look around; these are the people working two jobs at fast-food restaurants, big-box stores and plenty of other places that pay $9 an hour. They are not sitting home eating bonbons, drinking beer and driving Cadillacs, waiting for their government checks.

Thetis Pressley

Temecula

While Obama has not been shy about trying to convince people of a continuing rich-versus-poor class struggle, he has been doing it somewhat discreetly to avoid heated criticism by Romney that he is an extreme, out-of-control liberal rabble-rouser.

But who would have thought that Obama would get help on this matter from Romney himself? Did the Obama campaign make a deposit to one of Romney’s offshore bank accounts to get him to do this, or was it just another one of Romney’s frequent foot-in-mouth utterances?

Sydney Shiffman

Long Beach

ALSO:

Letters: E-Verify’s side benefit

Letters: Celebrity chefs who fight hunger

Letters: Israel, Iran, America and the bomb