Romney's Chick-Fil-A Moment

Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney was video taped at a private fund raising event in Boca Raton, Florida. During his remarks he noted that today a large number of Americans are dependent on government and would likely be voting for President Obama.

Erick Erickson, CNN commentator and Editor of RedState.com, called this “Romney’s Chick-Fil-A moment”.

Erickson writes, “Just a few months ago, Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A, gave an interview to a Christian publication that asked him about the Chick-Fil-A Foundation’s support of marriage. Cathy defending his position and spoke about his family’s faith. CNN.com picked it up and ran a story that Cathy had come out against gay marriage.”

“The Chick-Fil-A controversy animated a whole lot of people. It just turned out that the people it most animated were the people who agreed with Dan Cathy. So it is, I think, with Mitt Romney’s comments,” noted Erickson.

The question is will Romney take advantage of it and use it as his defining moment? Will Romney fully embrace his position of wanting less government and make good his pledge to reduce dependency on government?

Kate Obenshain, in Divider-In-Chief, writes, “Obama’s governing coalition is made up of the very rich and those dependent on the government in some way.” Obenshain notes in 2008, “The only income group Obama lost in the general election was those with household incomes between $50,000 and $75-000 – the middle class.” In 2008 “Hillary Clinton was seen as the middle class candidate”.

Obenshain writes President Obama characterizes the Republican philosophy as, “We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” That is what Governor Romney essentially said on the video.

Will he stick with it as conservatives like Rush Limbaugh want?

According to Limbaugh, “This could be the [golden] opportunity for Romney and for that campaign to finally take the gloves off and take the fear off and just start explaining conservatism. Start explaining liberty to people and what it means, and explain that they don’t have to be in that 47%.”

Limbaugh noted during his radio show, “We don’t want 47% of the country thinking that there’s no hope for them. We don’t want 47% of the country giving up. And, like I say, I don’t think all 47% are made up of people who are dependent, but I know what Romney was trying to say to these people. He was basically telling these people that we have reached a crossroads in this country.”

The Heritage Foundation reports, “It is true that nearly half of all tax filers—those who are filing an income form with the IRS—pay no federal income tax. It’s also true that millions of Americans receive direct government support in a host of ways, including income, food, housing, medical care, school lunches, and more.”

In 2009, 47 percent of all tax filers paid no federal individual income taxes, and in 2011 that figure was 46 percent. This raises a crucial question, as Heritage’s Alison Fraser points out: “Should nearly 50 percent of Americans really be exempt from funding the most basic constitutional functions of government—along with education, food stamps, energy, welfare, foreign aid, veterans’ benefits, housing, and so forth?”

“The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living!” – Dan Cofall, Wall Street Shuffle August 1, 2011.

Obama at Loyola University 1988 – “I actually believe in redistribution”: