One week before the first debates of the general presidential election, President Barack Obama is targeting rival Mitt Romney for both his comment about 47 percent of Americans paying no taxes becoming “victims” of government dependency and his refusal to release more than two years of his own personal tax returns.
The Obama campaign’s ad is airing in Ohio, the one state which has been a must-win for any Republican seeking the White House, and where Obama and running mate Paul Ryan are embarking on a bus tour this week — little more than one week before the first of three televised debates starting on Oct. 3.
Obama’s 30-second ad, like another one that the Obama-backing Priorities USA Action has produced, opens with the surreptitiously videotaped remarks of Romney at a May 17 fundraising dinner in Florida. In remarks first published a week ago, Romney told his audience that the 47 percent of Americans reliant on government are politically unreachable by his campaign.
Romney has since called those remarks “inelegant,” as he did in an interview that aired on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that aired last night. He said there, too, that he wants to serve “100 percent” of the people.
The Obama ad also seizes on the release of a second year of tax returns by Romney, as earlier promised, on Friday, which showed an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent paid in 2011. That followed the release of his 2010 return months ago that showed 13.9 percent paid.
His accountants reported that Romney had held his rate above 13 percent last year by not claiming all of the charitable contributions allowed him — to conform with an earlier statement that he had never paid less than 13 percent in taxes in the past 10 years. The accountants reported an average tax bill of 20.2 percent paid over 20 years, while all of those earlier returns remain private.
The president’s latest tax return showed an effective tax rate of 20 percent. The difference is the tax on earned income, in Obama’s case, and the lower tax rate on investment income, in Romney’s case.
And the ad questions Romney, as Obama has in ads before, for parking investments offshore.
Romney, the ad’s narrator says, has “paid just 14.1 percent in taxes last year. He keeps millions in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. He won’t release his tax returns before 2010.” The narrator concludes: “Maybe instead of attacking others on taxes. Romney should come clean on his.”
