So Where Are Romney's Despised 47%

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Yesterday I posted about Mitt Romney's open contempt for a large segment of Americans - particularly those who "paid no taxes."  Well guess what.  Most of those folks live in the Deep South and in states that are Republican bastions.  Just as is the case of those who receive most government aid, it's the red states, not the blue states who suck up the most federal money.  Thus, in his rant, Romney was actually slamming his own party base it would seem: lower income angry white voters in conservative states.  The Atlantic has a telling map posted above that shows where those Romney deems parasites actually live.  Here are highlights from The Atlantic piece that looks at who does and doesn't "pay taxes" further:

So let's set that speculation aside and look at who the people are who actually pay no income tax. Romney's statements are a little unclear, but it appears that the 47 percent figure represents all of those who pay no income tax, rather than the Democratic base. His problem is that those people are disproportionately in red states -- that is, states that tend to vote Republican.

It's important to remember that just because people aren't paying income tax doesn't mean they're not paying taxes -- they pay federal payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, for example. Once those taxes are factored in, the tax regime is basically flat. And the reason that most income tax nonpayers don't pay is they simply don't make enough income to qualify to pay. As one might expect, the map of states with the highest poverty levels resembles this map fairly closely. Many of them are also seniors, a highly contested voting bloc. Just more than 10 percent of households pay no income tax because they're retired. They might also be voters in places like Florida who are already jumpy about the changes to Medicare and Medicaid that the Romney-Ryan ticket has proposed -- although they would be mostly unaffected by those reforms.

So Romney appears to be wrong about these voters. But if calling for a less progressive taxation system was enough to alienate poor voters in the Deep South, the Republican Party would have already lost its stronghold there.

So once again we see Romney not only having his facts wrong, but also displaying an open contempt for average Americans when gathered with his 1% buddies.  The same folks Romney wants to give a massive tax break to at the expense of the middle class.  The man is truly an arrogant asshole.