Has Romney Been Criticized for Being Wealthy?

Mitt and Ann Romney have said they’ve been criticized for being wealthy and successful. They have both whined about this.

The fact is that the criticisms they have received have not been based in their being wealthy. They have been criticized for other things, specifically, living frugally by choice, not necessity, avoiding taxes, and being unable to relate to people whose lives are very different from theirs.

Mitt and Ann have never known not being wealthy. This is a fact, not a criticism. Both Mitt and Ann have been wealthy all their lives and they have never known not being financially secure. Mitt is currently worth about a quarter billion dollars. There are few better ways to describe financial security.

Living Frugally 

Ann Romney described her early married life with Mitt in a speech she delivered at the Republican National Convention in August, 2012 in Tampa Bay. She said that their dining table in their apartment was a fold-down ironing board, and that they ate a lot of pasta and tuna. She did this to try to portray herself and Mitt as being like the rest of middle class America. The problem with her portrayal is that it is fundamentally dishonest.

Mitt and Ann are not and have never been middle class. They have not experienced the same type of “lean years” that other people, those in the middle class, may have experienced. There is an enormous difference between Mitt and Ann’s choosing to live frugally and other people’s having to live frugally. Mitt and Ann were both backed by wealthy families, and their choice to live frugally was just that, a choice. Their living frugally by choice was not entirely authentic, and it was misleading of Ann to portray herself as being like members of the middle or lower classes who have to live frugally because they do not the safety net of wealthy family backing.

In this example, Ann has been criticized for portraying herself and Mitt as being like middle class or lower class people, not for being wealthy. These are two different things. Look in any thesaurus: You will not find “portraying yourself as poor when you are not” as a synonym for “being wealthy.”

Tax Avoidance

Mitt Romney has been criticized for avoiding taxes, not for being wealthy or successful. He has invested money in accounts domiciled in the Cayman Islands, yet he has insisted that he paid the same taxes on those dollars that he would pay if those accounts were domiciled in the United States. This is not true.

The Cayman Islands has no capital gains tax and no income tax. This means that the gains Romney has made in investment accounts in the Cayman Islands are not taxed as income, and Romney pays no capital gains taxes on the capital gains on those accounts. There is only one reason someone from the United States would invest in the Cayman Islands: to avoid paying taxes he would pay if those funds were invested in the United States.

Romney has said that he will not reveal his tax returns other than those for 2010 and 2011. He has said that the reason he won’t reveal his tax returns is not because “it’s not any of your business,” but because doing so would provide ammunition for others to use against him.

This is not a criticism, it is simply a comparison. “Avoiding taxes’ or “not releasing one’s tax returns because doing so would provide ammunition that others could use against one” is not a synonym for “being wealthy.” “Being wealthy” and “avoiding taxes” are two different things. So, in this example, Mitt has not been criticized for being wealthy, but he has been criticized for avoiding taxes, and for not releasing his taxes because doing so would provide information others could use against him.

Inability to Relate to People Whose Lives Are Very Different From Yours

Mitt Romney has been criticized for not being able to relate to middle class people, and for saying things that demonstrate his inability to relate to middle class people, or the unemployed. For example, when at a campaign stop, while chatting with people who were unemployed, he said, “I’m unemployed too.”

Although Mitt Romney has been unemployed for several years, he does not need to be employed again, ever. Because he is worth about a quarter of a billion dollars, he does not need to work and be paid another day in his life. To compare himself to people who need to be employed, and to say that by being unemployed he is like them, is terribly offensive.

Romney also suggested that anyone who is young and unemployed should simply start a business, and “borrow money from your parents if you have to.” By saying that, Romney demonstrated that he is so out of touch with the reality of middle class people that he apparently does not realize that not everyone has wealthy parents from whom they can “borrow money if they have to.” Criticizing someone for being out of touch and saying something ridiculous is not criticizing him for “being wealthy.” It’s criticizing him for being out of touch and saying something ridiculous.