Mitt Romney continues to insist that corporations are people, too:
The video is entitled “Mitt on the Road: A Week in New Hampshire,” and shows clips of Romney speaking at different locations around that key early primary state, and discussing the poor condition of the economy.
At just over the halfway mark, Romney declares: “Businesses are comprised of people. I’m talking about repair shops, and gas stations, and beauty salons, and restaurants. I’m talking about Apple computer, and Facebook, and Microsoft. I’m talking about businesses that employ people. It’s really astonishing to me that the Obama folks would try and argue that businesses aren’t people. What do they think they are? Little men from Mars? But when they tax business, they tax people.”
Earlier in the video, Romney continually compares the current unemployment situation to those of the “Jimmy Carter years,” positioning himself as the next Ronald Reagan, and conveniently ignoring the fact that Barack Obama took office after Wall St. and the Bush Administration imploded the economy.
What’s especially telling is Romney’s use of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook as exemplars of companies that Americans would evidently have issues taxing more fairly, presumably because those companies are seen as innovators.
The irony is that Facebook employs just under 2,000 people. Apple? Apple sells overpriced products out of the reach of less affluent consumers in order to make a 42% profit margin. And Microsoft? Not exactly the most popular corporation in the world with anyone who has ever seen a blue screen of death.
This smacks of desperation from the Romney campaign, but the best move his handlers can make under the circumstances. Republicans know that when it comes to politics, the only way out of a jam is straight through. It’s just “Don’t Retreat, Reload”, corporate edition.