The 47 Per Cent

With a little more than forty days left in this heated presidential election campaign I have started paying close attention. This week I learned that I was part of Mitt Romney's 47 per cent who paid zero Federal Income Tax in 2011. However, for 2010 I did pay some income tax. Since Governor Romney only considers these past two years important for tax records, I looked no further. This makes me something of a dependent guy - not taking much responsibility himself. Possibly so, when you ignore the sales taxes we pay, and the property taxes on real estate and farmland that I own. With only 17 years of federal service in the U.S. Navy I cannot claim a pension for my military career. As a college NROTC midshipman, my four years of Naval Science and Summer Active Duty Training didn't count as service time. My shipmates from the Naval Academy started their commissioned service with a full four years, even though we were commissioned regular officers on the same date. Since I paid no federal tax last year let's see how I have made out as a veteran and a retiree. My wife and I collected about $25,300 from Social Security, and it was not taxable income. We paid the government $2,316 for our Medicare cards. (We are over age 65 and "retired.") This brings us to Gov. Romney's age, 65 years. I guess his primary job in recent years has been "managing his personal investments." Apparently this has paid him pretty well. But it puts him in the lowest tax bracket with geezers like me who have plenty of deductions to keep our taxable income down. Maybe I have more in common with the GOP candidate than I thought.