Romney’s Ohio problem

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:51:00 +0000

Ohio, a state historically critical to the hopes of Republican presidential candidates, is slipping away from Mitt Romney. To understand why, all one needs to do is look at Romney's tax return.

In 2010, the median income in Ohio hit a 27-year-low of $46,093. In 2011, Mitt Romney reported income of $13.7 million.

The average Ohio voter tends to blame globalization for that long-run decline -- a fact borne out every four years when candidates of both parties tour the state bashing foreigners. (In 2008, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton trashed NAFTA. In 2012, Obama and Romney are aiming jabs at China.) Barack Obama's biggest stab at addressing Ohio's fear of globalization was significant -- he saved the U.S. auto industry. Ohio is second only to Michigan in auto-industry-related jobs.

Romney’s tax return comedy

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:20:00 +0000

A week that began for Romney with the release of the infamous 47 percent video is ending with the release of his 2011 tax return. Unfortunately for Romney, the details we have learned so far from the return only serve to reinforce the negative fallout from the "secret video."

We'll be poring over the actual returns soon, but an initial release from the Romney campaign has already told us a couple of amusing things.

First, Mitt and Ann Romney donated a whole heck of a lot of money to charity in 2011 -- $4,020,772, to be exact, or about 30 percent of their total income. But they chose only to claim $2.25 million of that total as charitable deductions, because, well, otherwise their overall tax burden would have been a little, shall we say, light.

From the campaign:

The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

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Romney’s Ohio problem

Romney’s tax return comedy