As the presidential debates draw closer, the striking differences between the economic policies of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney become even clearer.
Perhaps nothing brought that into the public consciousness more than Romney's crack about the 47 percent of the Americans who will vote for Obama because they feel entitled to get government aid or don't pay federal taxes.
By pandering to his wealthy supporters, he slandered tens of millions of Americans who are desperately seeking jobs, or who work hard but need government help like Social Security or Medicaid or Medicare or food stamps to make ends meet.
He tried to paint them as moochers and freeloaders, but the truth is much different. The Associated Press reports that about half of the people who don't pay taxes don't earn enough for a family of their size. For example, a family of four earning less than $26,400 would owe no federal tax after exemptions and deductions. That same AP report noted that 22 percent of those people Romney talked about are seniors who get tax breaks, another 15 percent get tax breaks because they are poor or are low-wage earners, and three percent get tax breaks for college tuition.
Incredibly, the poor are not the only ones who paid no federal income taxes. The Tax Policy Center says that in 2011, 78,000 tax filers with incomes between $211,000 and $533,000 paid no taxes; 24,000 households with income ranging from $553,000 to $2.2 million didn't pay taxes and 3,000 filers making more than $2.2 million paid no federal income tax.
Over the course of my life I have been one of Mitt Romney's 47 percent -- someone who received government help for child care and student loans so I could attend high school and college while raising a child when I was in my teens.
I am proud to have been one of the 47 percent, because that aid allowed me to pursue my dreams and overcome the barriers of growing up in a poor neighborhood to get a good education and a good job. I pay taxes -- at a far higher rate than Romney -- and my work fighting for the poor, for low-wage workers and for a truly fair economy allows me to give back to my community and to society as a whole.
Of course, I am not alone. There are many others who struggle valiantly to make ends meet, but who Romney would label "moochers."
There is Evangeline Byars of Brooklyn, a 32-year-old mother who returned to school to make a better life for her and her three-year-old daughter. She is a junior at Medgar Evers College, where she is studying Childhood Special Education. She is paying for school with grants and government loans, and she sees this as a stepping stone to a better life and a way for her daughter to become self-sufficient.
Carmen Perez is a cancer survivor from The Bronx. She worked as a home health care aid for 16 years before becoming ill. She is unable to work and subsists on disability.
And Maria Maisonet is an unemployed 51-year-old Brooklyn woman who used to work in maintenance and cleaning jobs. She was laid off last year and has been unable to find work in the past year. She is active in her community and, three years ago, helped lead the fight to create more affordable units in her Spring Creek Towers public housing complex.
They are real people who fight for survival every day.
They are the people who need a president who cares about them more than big banks and corporations -- many of which also get government help in the form of taxpayer-funded bank bailouts or tax loopholes that allow them to pay little or no federal income, like Verizon and General Electric.
They are the people who need help to make ends meet or go to school to better themselves.
They are the people who live and work in the shadows, but who are law-abiding and productive and who only want a chance to get a piece of the American Dream.
And they are the real people behind the Census numbers that show New York City's poverty rate is at a 10-year-high and that the income gap between the rich and poor in Manhattan "rival[ed] disparities in sub-Saharan Africa."
Those people -- those 47 percenters -- would like nothing more than to have decent jobs that would allow them to fend for themselves. To that end, we need a comprehensive jobs program like the one proposed by President Obama, but blocked by Republicans.
That program includes tax cuts to help small businesses hire and grow; would put workers back on the job; create pathways for Americans looking for jobs and put more money into the pockets of every worker without raising the deficit.
The White House says the president's jobs program would create 482,600 jobs in New York alone. That program, or one like it, is the only way to bring back the economy, create jobs for middle- and low-income workers and narrow that totally unacceptable gap between the have and have-nots.
President Obama's economic plan would help do that -- not just for the 47 percent who get government assistance, but for the one percent, the ultra-rich, the big banks and the large corporations who fit into Mitt Romney's vision of America.
So as the presidential debates draw nearer, we need to have a national conversation about the economy and the needs of everyday Americans who make this country great -- not just the billionaires who profit from them.
Follow Camille Rivera on Twitter: www.twitter.com/United_NY
This country was built on the premise that all would have a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What's promised is an opportunity. A person can make something of opportunity or squander it, that's up to each individual.
The fact is that there are less and less opportunities for the working class to move up the economic ladder. There are many to blame for this, but the policies proposed by Romney will increase this problem. His comments about the "47%" show a disregard for those who struggle to stay afloat and would love to have the opportunities that he had.
Struggle does not necessarily come because people made poor choices as some of the comments suggest, but rather because we are becoming a country of communities where people have no choice at all. The idea that people should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps doesn't really hold water when so many people can't afford boots.
Utter bullcrap. If we take the whole 47% and take out the elderly and disabled, what are we left with? Guaranteed there is a percentage of those who did in fact make poor choices - dropping out of school, limited education, children as teens they clearly couldn't afford, the father(s) of those children not around for support and an entitlement attitude.
This is a struggle many create for themselves. I cannot and will not feel sorry for them. It is irresponsible for humans to continue producing children they cannot afford to properly care for. And it's just as equally irresponsible for the govt. to continue to give them our tax dollars for their poor choices.
I could give you a laundry list of females just like that - all with children, limited education, never worked and have no intentions of working. For them breeding children they can't afford is their job and it's the taxpayers job to support them.
No, they don't make up the ENTIRE 47% but they make up a good percentage of that 47%.
I do have to question single women with children - where is the financial responsibility from the sperm donor?
Further, all the jobs training bills in the world are useless if there are no jobs. The government taxes and spends too much and thats why there's no jobs. Let's agree to a compromise:
1. A fair flat tax on ALL americans with only one exemption for those under the poverty line, this catches your rich who don't pay taxes and is fair to everyone. It also lets everyone fill out their tax returns with a one page form.
2. Reduce regulations and restrictions on all business across the board, we are killing ourselves, with a giant beauracracy that kills jobs. Cut the beauracracy and you lower the cost of governement, spend that money on schools.
3. Actively pursue fraud in government hand-out program, set severe criminal penalties for those caught, and set up work-programs for those who should be working.
4. Cut the size and scope of government overall, freeze government growth for two years, and consolidate and cut programs to the tune of 20-30%. Use this savings to lower the flat tax rate for everyone.
I've been paying taxes since I was 16. I too didn't make poor choices like having children too young or out of wedlock or with some loser that couldn't hold down a job. I don't have a great education - that being my fault (and parents that should have pushed more) but despite that I have a decent paying job.
I look around at many I know who have a limited education, don't work or work minimum wage and I have to wonder how they are able to afford children. And there is never a "man" around, which I always find amazing.