!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is why the rich shouldn't pay 3% more in taxes?

1/24/2012--L.A. Times...http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-releases-tax-returns-20120124,0,4945167.story

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann paid $3 million in federal taxes in 2010 on nearly $21.7 million of income derived from a vast array of investments, amounting to an effective tax rate of 13.9%, according returns released by his campaign Tuesday.

In addition, the Romneys expect to pay $3.2 million on $20.9 million of income for the 2011 tax year, for an effective rate of 15.4%.

That’s substantially lower than the top 35% marginal tax rate on wages and salaries -- and much lower than the rate paid by his political rivals. President Obama paid an effective tax rate of 26% in 2010, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich paid a rate of 31.6%. Experts say Romney benefits from a tax code that allows investors to keep more of their income than wage earners, particularly investors in the rarefied world of private equity.

Even among his wealthy peers -- a cohort that particularly benefits from the lower capital gains rate -- Romney’s rate is below the average 18.5% effective tax rate paid by the richest 1%, according to the Tax Policy Center...

Republicans start sounding like "socialists"?

Romney "like(s) being able to fire people."

Other GOP contenders have a problem with that (not firing people, just telling the public that's what they want to do)

"Can't we get back to bashing Obama's pro-middle class policies?"

Full story: http://www.denverpost.com/littwin/ci_19707306

By Mike Littwin
The last thing anyone could have expected from the Republican presidential field here was a late-breaking shift to the left...

...Here's Gingrich, who has called Romney a looter, explaining to the press how a historian/not lobbyist sees the issue:
"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, in fact ... a flawed system? So I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and leaving behind a factory that should be there."

Rick Perry — who is polling at 1 percent in New Hampshire — is in South Carolina, where he's focusing on a company that he says was "looted" by Bain and adds that "getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is ... indefensible."

"If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing," said Perry, who routinely calls Barack Obama a socialist, "it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it."

I know. You think the outrage may be forced — and a little late in the game. Everyone figured Romney's problem in the primaries would be Romneycare. But it turns out to be Bain Scare...