Government handouts for the rich

A New York Times editorial yesterday focused on the handouts that rich people get from the federal government.   The same rich people, like Mitt Romney, who disdain the "47%" who are branded as "dependent on the government" and want to keep it that way.

Headlined "Mr. Romney's Government Handout," two paragraphs are worth quoting in fuill:

The biggest beneficiaries of government largesse are not those who struggle along on Social Security payments, Medicare or Medicaid benefits, or earned-income tax credits, despite what Mitt Romney has told his donors.  Rather thay are those at the highest end of the income scale:  government contractors, corporate farmers and very rich individuals who have figured out how to exploit the country's poorly written tax code for their benefit.

The latter group's most prominent member is Mr. Romney himself, whose astonishingly low tax rates are made possible by finding and using every loophole and flaw in the code.  What his tax practices show is not illegal or unethical behavior, but rather the unfairness of a tax system that provides its most outlandish benefits only for the very, very rich and savvy.  What is worse is that Mr. Romney has proposed making this prodoundly dysfunctional system even more unfair.

This is the very heart of the matter -- and exactly why Romney refuses to divulge his tax proposals or his personal tax returns.   Not that he has done anything illegal, although at least one of Bain's strategies for compensating executives (including Romney) is a gray-area tactic that is being challenged and perhaps will wind up in court.

It's that the American people would finally realize how our tax code has become something opposite to what it was meant to be.   While in principle it is a progressive tax system that diminishes the income gap, all the exemptions, loopholes, and subsidies have made it a major vehicle for increasing wealth for the already wealthy.

And Romney's policies would only increase that; and the income gap in America, which now rivals that of the Gilded Age, would only widen further.

Ralph