Mitt Romney Says 'Big Business Is Doing Fine' Thanks To 'Offshore Tax Havens'

The Jed Report on Fri Aug 24, 2012

This guy just can't make it through a day without shoving his foot right in his mouth, can he?

"Big business is doing fine in many places," Romney said during a campaign fundraiser Thursday. "They get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses."

I know "big business is doing fine" sounds like "the private sector is doing fine," but it's not exactly the same thing—though Mitt Romney would probably justify removing the "big" from his quote, because who cares about what words actually mean. Still, I'll read the quote like a normal person instead of a Romney hack and cut him some slack on hypocrisy there. But here's the thing: I honestly don't know if he's praising or condemning offshore tax havens.

I mean, with a normal politician you'd assume Romney was condemning them. And you'd assume he wasn't speaking highly of big business. But Mitt is a guy who says that anyone who dares criticize business hates America, and that anything other than unadulterated love for free enterprise is akin* to Stalinism—so he couldn't be criticizing big business. And given that he says offshore tax havens are part of the reason that big business is doing fine, you have to assume that he's in favor of them, right?

And no, I'm not being entirely serious here. After all, it's really hard to take anything Mitt Romney says very seriously. That being said, have you heard him say anything specific about getting rid of any of those tax havens? No? Neither have I. And we all know that he's taken extensive advantage of them at Bain and in his personal life. So as weird as it would be, maybe he really was praising offshore tax havens. I mean, job creators love them, right? And Mitt Romney is nothing if not a job creator.

*I'll bet you thought I'd be able get through this post without mentioning Mitt's favorite GOP senate nominee. Nope. On message, baby!

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