Mitt Romney - too rich to be President?

Mitt Romney is a very rich man, so rich, he can afford to spend $44.6 million of his personal fortune on his election campaign. So far, he and his backers have spent over $200 million and show no signs of slowing down, their campaign fund raising capability is obviously brilliant and leaves his competitors in the shade. He said "I won't apologize for being successful" and who would blame him?


Money talks and gets results and it’s getting good results for Mitt Romney. His good friends in Wall Street got around campaign laws by making huge donations years before he announced that he would run.


''When you look at his operation, you end up with two words: Romney Inc,'' said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization who work to eliminate the influence of big money. ''It's as if Mitt Romney is integrating his business experience in the investment banking world into the political world and creating multiple ways in which to advance his presidency.” He went on ''This is a highly sophisticated, far-reaching money operation designed to curry favour with politicians and local and state political organisations, and it's financed by donors who are bound to have great influence with Mitt Romney if he's elected president.''


Mitt Romney makes around $20 million a year and only pays about 15 per cent tax and is part of the one per cent who live on a different planet to the rest of us. And he really hasn’t a clue - when asked about the $370,000 he received in speaker fees, he said it was “not very much.”


Although his tax returns are legally correct and true, they show that he recently closed a Swiss bank account and holds investments in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, like so many other wealthy people trying to dodge the tax man. He will argue that he created more than 100,000 jobs and it’s probably true but there’s an underlying cynicism that suggests all those jobs were merely the means of a plan to make a few insiders fabulously rich.


The former Mormon missionary’s tax returns show most of his $US21.7 million income last year came from his investments. He also gave nearly $US3 million to charitable causes and the Mormon Church which helped reduce his effective tax rate to about 14 per cent.


Americans used to believe in the theory that anyone could become President of the United States. I wonder if they still do.