The Truth About Romney's 47% Remark.

Liberals have been having a field day with Governor Romney's remarks about The 47%.

At the heart of it, they want voters to believe that Romney called 47% of Americans lazy sponges, and said he's written them off. Of course, he said no such thing but context doesn't matter where political points can be scored.

The 47% figure was part of a donor's question and it comes from reports that about 47% of Americans receive some kind of government benefit and pay no income Tax.

Liberal bloggers have taken to categorizing these 47% who don't pay taxes. They profile single parent families, hard working Americans who pay their mortgage on time and have a steady job. They point out that within that 47% are retirees who receive social security checks, or medicare benefits. Some of the 47% are even veterans who received aid to get a college education after serving on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problem of course is that Romney is not talking about them. The basis of Romney's remark is that a platform of tax cuts and keeping taxes rates low doesn't hold much sway over people who receive benefits and pay nothing (or little) for them.

Liberals say that a President needs to be President for 100% of Americans, not just 53%. Implying that Romney essentially only cares about little more than half of the country's citizens.

In actuality, Romney's remarks were in reference to campaigning. He's acknowledging that there is a percentage of the American electorate that will vote for Obama no matter what Romney does or says (or Obama for that matter), and he's not going to expend resources trying to change their minds while there are others who have not yet decided.

It's the same for Obama. There is a part of the electorate that is simply never going to vote for him. It would be foolish for him to focus his resources on trying to win their votes.

The 47% in Romney's sound-bite is rhetorical shorthand for the people dependent upon government assistance for subsistence. Nothing more.

But liberals know this, and they also know that most Americans actually agree with Romney. It's why they're too frightened to share the video with their supporters.

For the record, I happen to believe that not everyone in the rhetorical 47% - those on food stamps, unemployment benefits, and other welfare recipients - want to be there. The Democrat party is trying to grow the dependency class, there's no doubt about that, but not everyone in that class wants to be there and I believe a good many of them will vote against Obama in November.

We shall see.

Romney's original remarks (RSS Subscribers may have to read the post on the blog to view the video):