What Does it Matter?

If you would pardon me for a moment, I’m going to use this space to ruminate on whether or not I believe that Mitt Romney’s absurd wealth makes him more or less a candidate for my vote -- or perhaps it’s entirely irrelevant? 

First, and foremost in my mind, the man is (roughly) self-made. His parents had the funds to send him to Harvard Law School, but his current fortune is his own, the results of a lucrative job out of college and dozens of years at the helm of a multi-billion dollar investment group. His tax bill (of only 13.9%) bothers me all but none because he hasn’t actively avoided the higher tax rates paid by most wealthy Americans, he simply falls into the category of people still receiving incentives from the government to invest (a long-outdated tax policy, if you ask me, but irrelevant to his moral standing and has no sway on my personal vote).

This Bain Capital bothers me, though. It’s an investment house, but not in the sense of Warren Buffet or the like, Bain profits largely at the expense of smaller investors -- buying faltering companies and either selling them piecemeal or cutting operating costs at the expense of jobs. For the longest time, I’ve thought of these people, using their advantages to create disadvantages for others, to be less than upstanding. If nothing else, they certainly fail to represent the face that I wish to show to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, I don’t believe that Mitt Romney’s financial success should play any part in this election. Even if he is wonderful at running a business, Congress is nothing like a board of directors, and the president is not a CEO. And the perception that he doesn’t understand the plights of the common man, while possibly true, really won’t impact his ability to understand the numbers that represent them if he makes it behind the guarded doors of the Oval Office. To me, the real question is whether or not Mitt Romney is the man that I wish was the face of my country. The answer is no, because he seems produced -- too spit-shined. I imagine he’s ready to burst at any moment, but I suppose I digress.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/moneymag/0712/gallery.candidates.moneymag/6.html

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/mitt-romney-paid-a-139-effective-tax-rate-in-2010.php