The Dirtiest Campaign

By Columnist TRB Romney is complaining that Obama's campaign is using dirty tactics against his, accusing Obama of being "hateful," a new word that entered the campaign yesterday when VP Biden suggested to a group of mostly African Americans that they might find themselves back "in chains" if Romney and Ryan were elected. So Romney has introduced the "hate" word. Back and forth it goes, this hostility between the two campaign camps. We know it won't stop before the election. It has already gone too far and it can't turn back. By the way, Romney has been running hateful and inaccurate commercials against Obama since this campaign began.

Obama it seems will have to resort to dirty tricks more than Romney, who is fully funded by billionaires who don't want to pay any taxes. In fact this entire election is about paying taxes, specifically about the super rich paying taxes. It can be summed up in very few words. Quite simply, the rich don't want to pay their fair share of taxes. They want to pay even less than they pay now, which is less than average. If VP candidate Paul Ryan has his way, Mitt Romney would have to pay less than one percent in taxes a year. How is that for a tax break for your boss?

Better still, where does that tax break come from? Well, part of it comes from you, your income.

The super wealthy, who have been getting away with murder, many of them paying no taxes for decades now, want to double down. They want it all. Not content to be obligated to pay a measly 13 percent or so of their income in taxes - that is only during years when they don't have large enough stock losses to write off even more taxes - not satisfied, that, like their hero Romney, they can legally hide untaxed billions of dollars in overseas banks, they want to go through life without paying any taxes. None.

The wealthiest of them have been financing politicians - Dems and Repubs - who have promised to lower their taxes even more. This is all the result of a Supreme Court ruling proclaiming that money has the same "rights" as "free speech." Because of this ruling, the best way to get elected to public office today in the U.S. is to do anything the Super Rich want. They have more campaign funding available than the unions and every other special interest group put together. Romney has received approximately $20 million from one campaign contributer so far. He has promised to spend as much as it takes to get rid of Obama. One wonders, what is this contributor's agenda for America?

Those of us who are not mega-millionaires or billionaires wonder where we will come up with the tax money the wealthy refuse to pay. Without it, we can not run our public school systems, or public hospitals, our fire departments and police stations, our DPWs and public transportation systems.

Romney and Ryan have a solution. They have discovered a way to come up with the tax revenue the rich refuse to pay - they will take it from the "entitlement" programs of the middle class and the poor. They will take it from Medicare and Social Security and breakfast programs for poor children.

This is why the candidates are fighting it out in the mud. A lot is at stake. Romney will only release two years of his taxes, and Ryan, only two years of his. Taxes, a public matter, are suddenly very secret when the wealthy are involved. All bets are off in this election. which does not even belong to the American people. Many of them just think it does. This is an election of voter supression in some states, around-the-clock inaccuate political advertising in others and often totally fictional stump speeches around the nation.

Anyone who knows where America has gone, please report to the Lost and Found.