Obama vs Romney 2012 - CDC Election

[Tearloch7]

Because people care more about policy and their wallets than some non-news "event"...

[Primus099]

Letterman said it best, "the best thing about the election is that after it's over one of these candidates will be gone"

[Tearloch7]

Letterman said it best, "the best thing about the election is that after it's over one of these candidates will be gone"

[Mr. Ambien]

Because people care more about policy and their wallets than some non-news "event"...

[Mountain Man]

I want to hear which candidate is most prepared for a Cylon invasion. Canada can't be the only targeted country!

[Blackberries]

;

Because people care more about policy and their wallets than some non-news event

[Jaimito]

The thought of four years of Romney fills me with a sense of revulsion best not described here ..

[Guest Gumballthechewy]

I'd vote for Obama, here's why:

[DonLever]

More than 80% of incumbant presidents are re-elected and I see no difference in this election. Presidents are determined by the Electoral College, not the popular vote. Most political scientists/pundits say Obama is leading in most of the Swing States, States where neither the Democrats or Republicans have a overwhelming advantage.

It all comes down to Ohio with 18 collegial votes. No Republican have ever won the Presidency without winning the state. It comes down to math. The winner needs 270 collegial votes. Analysts say if Romney loses Ohio, he need to virtually win to win All of the Swing states to become president. That means sweeping state likes Florida, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Virgina, North Carolina, Nevada, and a few other states.

Romney is leading in very few of them. He is tied in some of them. He has a shot at Florida and thats it.

So the left wingers on this thread has nothing to worry about. I'll eat my hat if Romney wins.

My theory is the media is playing up the closenes to make it interesting. Otherwise no one would even bother to tune it to a election that Mr. Obama has a 80% chance of winning.

[Ossi Vaananen]

More than 80% of incumbant presidents are re-elected and I see no difference in this election. Presidents are determined by the Electoral College, not the popular vote. Most political scientists/pundits say Obama is leading in most of the Swing States, States where neither the Democrats or Republicans have a overwhelming advantage.

It all comes down to Ohio with 18 collegial votes. No Republican have ever won the Presidency without winning the state. It comes down to math. The winner needs 270 collegial votes. Analysts say if Romney loses Ohio, he need to virtually win to win All of the Swing states to become president. That means sweeping state likes Florida, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Virgina, North Carolina, Nevada, and a few other states.

Romney is leading in very few of them. He is tied in some of them. He has a shot at Florida and thats it.

So the left wingers on this thread has nothing to worry about. I'll eat my hat if Romney wins.

My theory is the media is playing up the closenes to make it interesting. Otherwise no one would even bother to tune it to a election that Mr. Obama has a 80% chance of winning.

[Jaimito]

speaking of self deportation, NYT beat me to it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/fashion/canada-would-welcome-election-losers.html?hp&gwh=6A61F21E6FD4535033B7F4FFE0B0E23B

November 2, 2012

At a Loss? There’s Always Canada

By JOHN ORTVED

IT’S a refrain heard every four years: “If [insert Republican name] is elected president, I’m moving to Canada.”

The pledge comes mostly from left-leaning Americans who view Canada, with its universal health care and cultural progressiveness, as a liberal refuge from Red State America. Celebrities, in particular, seem prone to such declarations.

Cher recently declared on Twitter (and later deleted) that she could not “breathe the same air” as Mitt Romney. Susan Sarandon and George Lopez have both cited Canada as a potential escape.

But has anyone asked the Canadians what they might think of a sudden influx of lefty Americans?

“Every Canadian I know will take exile in Florida,” joked Craig Offman, the foreign editor of The Globe and Mail. “A massive influx of Americans would generate widespread fear and terror.”

In truth, many Canadians would welcome the influx of disenchanted Obama supporters. “In Canada we’re happy to provide a safe haven for next-door neighbors in the middle of a marital dispute,” said Douglas Coupland, the writer and artist. “And if anyone trips while crossing the border, we’re happy to set their broken bones for free.”

The sentiment is echoed in business circles.

“The more the better is my view,” added Robert Prichard, chairman of the Bank of Montreal. “That said, President Obama is going to win, and we won’t be getting a special dividend on Nov. 7.”

The image of Canada as a political haven for Americans goes back centuries. “Canada began receiving U.S. emigrants at the time of the Revolutionary War, when the United Empire Loyalists left everything behind to build lives in the north,” said John Manley, a former deputy prime minister of Canada. “In that case, they were conservatives wanting to live under the king.”

But recent history suggests that few actually follow through.

While the number of United States citizens who permanently reside in Canada doubled during George W. Bush’s presidency (from 5,800 in 2000 to 11,200 in 2008, according to Citizen and Immigration Canada, a government agency), researchers say it had little to do with the elections.

“Relatively few people make the difficult decision to uproot themselves and their families,” said Dr. Janice Gross Stein, the director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. “The one big exception was the desire to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.”

These days, pocketbook issues outweigh politics. “By far the most common reason for migration between Canada and the U.S. is the labor market,” said Jeffrey Reitz, a professor of immigration studies at the Munk School.

Indeed, few took Rush Limbaugh seriously when he and other conservatives borrowed a page from the liberal playbook and threatened to move if Obamacare passed in 2010.

While Mr. Limbaugh pledged to move to Costa Rica, he might consider Canada the next time Democrats pass a big piece of legislation. Rather than a leftist sanctuary, Canada has recently swung to the right, which may give liberals-in-exile pause.

“We’ve got a right-wing government up here too, eh,” said Matthieu Aikins, a Canadian journalist who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. “And our prime minister’s policy on Israel and Palestine makes Romney look like Jimmy Carter.”

Since 2006, the Canadian government has been dominated by the Conservative Party, the result of the 2000 merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the right-wing Canadian Alliance. “People would have to come with their eyes wide open,” said Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance. “We’re engaged in a program of significant fiscal restraint.”

Of course, right-wing is a relative concept. “It’s Canadian conservatism,” said Margaret Wente, a widely read columnist for The Globe and Mail. That means few abortion restrictions, strong bank regulations and no capital punishment. “We also have gay marriage,” she said.

Left-leaning Americans will still find plenty to savor. “Even though Canada is now in one of its most conservative periods in decades, which I hate, the situation would still pale considerably in terms of threatened civil liberties,” said the musician Rufus Wainwright, who was raised in Montreal and now lives in New York.

Yet some Canadian progressives think it would be ultimately self-defeating, for their cause and for the continent, for like-minded Americans to decamp north.

"My plea would be for American liberals and progressives to fight the good fight at home,” said Bob Rae, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party of Canada.

“Stick it out,” said Jeremy Laing, a fashion designer in Toronto whose American husband emigrated in 2005 to be with Mr. Laing. “The margin between left and right in the U.S. is so slight that even a small exodus could swing the future balance.

“What would help is if more of us liberal Canadians moved to the U.S.,” Mr. Laing added. “But I won’t do that until my marriage is federally recognized.”

[TOMapleLaughs]

You'd think that Americans would remember the NeoCon-led dismemberment of their basic rights and freedoms under Bush. Or the ridiculous religious right. Or the worldwide shame.

Yup, a vote for Romney is a vote to return to all these things. While Romney is a weathervane on every issue, who do we think is standing behind him? Neocons, the religious right, and the shame that goes with it.

If Romney wins, the globe will shake it's head.

[Wetcoaster]

So it seems the earlier claim by Harry Reid that Mitt Romney had paid not income tax for 15 years was substantially accurate according to this analysis.

The report:

Bloomberg broke the story late Sunday night, with a story published around 11pm Central Time which gives an in-depth explanation of Romney's legal tax evasion since 1996. His tax avoidance was completely legal, although most hardworking Americans might question its ethical qualities. As President Obama said in the second debate, the GOP candidate paid less money in taxes than people earning less than $30,000 per year. How can that happen? Well, up until 1997, if you were rich, you could "rent" non-profit status from your favorite charity.

...

So, when did Romney actually start paying taxes again? Well, since he hadn't paid any taxes at least since 1996, it's easy to discern that he began when he decided to run for president. Forethought. He knew his tax returns would be an issue, so he paid in 2011 and used that return as "proof" that he'd paid what was "legally required" of him.

http://politics.gath...281474981730200

And the originating source for the report:

Romney Avoids Taxes via Loophole Cutting Mormon Donations

By Jesse Drucker - Oct 29, 2012

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill. While Romney’s tax avoidance is legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become an issue in the campaign. President Barack Obama attacked him in their second debate for paying “lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less.”

In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity -- the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing -- to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefiting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In general, charities don’t owe capital gains taxes when they sell assets for a profit. Trusts like Romney’s permit funders to benefit from that tax-free treatment, said Jonathan Blattmachr, a trusts and estates lawyer who set up hundreds of such vehicles in the 1990s.

Near Zero

“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction “is just a throwaway,” he said. “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero.”

When individuals fund a charitable remainder unitrust, or “CRUT,” they defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments. Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.

Romney’s CRUT, which is only a small part of the $250 million that Romney’s campaign cites as his net worth, has been paying him 8 percent of its assets each year. As the Romneys have received these payments, the money that will potentially be left for charity has declined from at least $750,000 in 2001 to $421,203 at the end of 2011.

Tax Returns

The Romney campaign declined to answer written questions about the trust.

“The trust has operated in accordance with the law,” Michele Davis, a campaign spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Paul Comstock, a financial adviser to LDS Philanthropies, an arm of the Mormon Church, said that while he wasn’t familiar with the trust, Romney and his trustee might arrange to compensate the church for the dwindling amount with other gifts.

“It may be that they’ve made provisions for the charity someplace else that will make up for what this isn’t going to give them,” Comstock said.

Bloomberg News obtained the trust’s tax returns from 2007 to 2011 from the Internal Revenue Service. Romney hasn’t disclosed the trust’s tax returns and is under no legal obligation to do so. He did make some disclosures about the trust’s investments in Massachusetts filings from 2002 to 2007 and as a presidential candidate in the current campaign.

After Death

Funds held by Romney’s trust are scheduled to be distributed after the death of Romney and his wife to “a charitable organization to be designated by Romney,” according to the 2007 filing, disclosing assets he held while governor of Massachusetts. “In the absence of such a designation the funds will go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

Davis declined to comment on whether Romney has designated another charity since then.

Romney has been an active member of the church, which expects members to donate 10 percent of their income. Over the years, he has donated millions of dollars of stock in Bain-owned companies to the church, securities filings show.

The church recommends such trusts on its website as one of many options for donors.

“Probably one of the advantages of a charitable remainder trust is that it helps with capital gains tax,” said Carl McLelland, an attorney in the planned giving office for LDS Philanthropies.

Capital Gains

CRUTs were more common in the 1990s when capital gains rates were higher. In 1996, when Romney set up his trust in Massachusetts, the federal rate was 28 percent, compared with 15 percent today. At the time, a Massachusetts state resident who sold shares for a gain of $1 million could have faced a combined state and federal capital gains tax of as much as 40 percent, reducing his take to $600,000.

By contrast, if he contributed the stock to a CRUT, and it sold the shares, it typically wouldn’t owe any tax since it is a charitable trust. The CRUT could reinvest the $1 million and earn a return on the full amount.

“The power of this is the tax deferral,” said Jay A. Friedman, a partner at accounting firm Perelson Weiner LLP in New York. “The money is all growing tax free and he only pays tax on what is distributed to him.”

Concerned that CRUTS weren’t sufficiently philanthropic, Congress mandated in July 1997 that the present value of what was projected to be left for charity must equal at least 10 percent of the initial contribution. Existing CRUTS weren’t affected by the new law.

Dwindling Principal

Romney’s trust was projected to leave to charity an amount with a present value of a little less than 8 percent of the initial contribution, according to an analysis by Friedman. Thus, the specifics of Romney’s trust wouldn’t have passed legal muster if it had been set up 13 months later, he said.

Because the trust’s investments have been earning a return far below its annual payouts to the Romneys, its principal has dwindled rapidly.

In 2001, five years after it was established, the trust had a value of between $750,000 and $1.25 million. Since then, it has pursued a conservative investment strategy -- regardless of the ups and downs of the stock market -- buying a mix of money- market funds, federally-backed bonds and federal bond funds. Since 2007, it has moved its assets entirely into cash. By 2011, its investments earned a return of $48, down from between $60,001 and $100,000 in 2001. It paid $36,696 to the Romneys in 2011.

Romneys Favored

The current investing strategy favors the Romneys over the charity because they get a guaranteed payout, said Michael Arlein, a trusts and estates lawyer at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.

“The Romneys get theirs off the top and the charity gets what’s left,” he said. “So by definition, if it’s not performing as well, the charity gets harmed more.”

The trustee for Romney’s CRUT is R. Bradford Malt, chairman of the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, and manager for Romney’s various family trusts as well as his personal attorney. Ropes & Gray has also been for years the main outside counsel for Bain Capital.

If the CRUT maintains the same investing strategy, assets will continue to shrink, said Jerome M. Hesch, a tax and estate planning attorney at the law firm Carlton Fields. The trustee acted prudently in protecting against losses during a stock market decline, he said.

Nevertheless, “what’s going to go to charity is probably close to nothing,” Hesch said.

http://www.bloomberg...-donations.html

[Ossi Vaananen]

^ woah, it's by Bloomberg too so it's reputable. Being picked up in the last half hour by almost every media outlet. I really think this would have been more effective if it was released a week ago.

[Wetcoaster]

^ woah, it's by Bloomberg too so it's reputable. Being picked up in the last half hour by almost every media outlet. I really think this would have been more effective if it was released a week ago.

[Wetcoaster]

The latest trends of the polls from Nate Silver's analysis (NY Times FiveThirtyEight political blog) and they favour Obama:

Electoral vote (November 6 forecast):

306.9 (+11.4 since Oct. 27)

Mitt Romney - 231.1 (-11.4 since Oct. 27)

Chance of Winning

Barack Obama - 85.1% (+11.5 since Oct. 27)

Mitt Romney - 14.9% (-11.5 since Oct. 27)

Popular vote

Barack Obama - 50.6% (+0.3 since Oct. 27)

Mitt Romney - 48.3% (-0.4 since Oct. 27)

http://fivethirtyeig...or/nate-silver/

Silver examines in detail the various battleground states polling results and compared them to historical results.

Because President Obama leads in the polling average in most of the swing states, this means that most of the polls there on Saturday showed him ahead as well. Among the 21 polls in battleground states on Saturday, 16 had Mr. Obama ahead as compared with just two leads for Mr. Romney; three other battleground state polls had the race tied.

...

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s state polls continue to show more strength than they did just after the Denver debate. As we wrote on Saturday, we are at the point where the polls would have to be biased against Mr. Romney (in a statistical sense) in order for him to win the Electoral College.

It is worth emphasizing the point once more that, for all the distractions caused by individual polls, the polling averages have been very reliable in the era of rich state polling.

And nationally:

On Sunday, Mr. Obama led by an average of about one percentage point among seven national surveys. That is not much of an edge, but better than had generally been the case for him just after the Denver debate.

What Mr. Romney will want to see are national polls showing him a point or so ahead in the race, as was the case just after Denver.

If the national polls show a tie on average, then Mr. Romney will be more of an underdog than you might think, since that is when Mr. Obama’s Electoral College advantages will tend to give him their greatest benefit. In the FiveThirtyEight simulation on Saturday, Mr. Obama won the Electoral College about 80 percent of the time when the national popular vote was tied.

http://fivethirtyeig...r-pennsylvania/

[Wetcoaster]

Suffering from "election fatigue"???

Relentless media coverage of the U.S. presidential election caused a frustrated four-year-old girl to burst into tears this week, with the child's mother catching the cathartic release on video.

"I'm tired — I'm tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney," Abigael Evans told her mother, Elizabeth Evans, as the Colorado child's eyes welled up after hearing what her mother calls "one too many mentions of the election" on NPR news.

In the video, posted to YouTube, Elizabeth Evans can be heard reassuring her daughter that the campaign will be over in "only a few more days."

Upon seeing the video and agreeing that the public is likely experiencing election fatigue, NPR released a personal apology "to Abigael and all the many others who probably feel like her."

In the statement, NPR blogger Mark Memmott writes: "We must confess, the campaign's gone on long enough for us, too. Let's just keep telling ourselves: 'Only a few more days, only a few more days, only a few more days.'"

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...on-fatigue.html

As one comment on the video noted:

The part where the mother told her that President Obama shot Santa in the face and Governor Romney killed, stewed and ate The Easter Bunny was cut from the video.

[kyledude]

Romney is so transparently vile and disingenuous, the fact that he has a shot of winning just shows how fracked the US system is.

[Buddhas Hand]

So it seems the earlier claim by Harry Reid that Mitt Romney had paid not income tax for 15 years was substantially accurate according to this analysis.

The report:

Bloomberg broke the story late Sunday night, with a story published around 11pm Central Time which gives an in-depth explanation of Romney's legal tax evasion since 1996. His tax avoidance was completely legal, although most hardworking Americans might question its ethical qualities. As President Obama said in the second debate, the GOP candidate paid less money in taxes than people earning less than $30,000 per year. How can that happen? Well, up until 1997, if you were rich, you could "rent" non-profit status from your favorite charity.

...

So, when did Romney actually start paying taxes again? Well, since he hadn't paid any taxes at least since 1996, it's easy to discern that he began when he decided to run for president. Forethought. He knew his tax returns would be an issue, so he paid in 2011 and used that return as "proof" that he'd paid what was "legally required" of him.

http://politics.gath...281474981730200

And the originating source for the report:

Romney Avoids Taxes via Loophole Cutting Mormon Donations

By Jesse Drucker - Oct 29, 2012

In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.

Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.

The charitable remainder unitrust, as it is known, is one of several strategies Romney has adopted over his career to reduce his tax bill. While Romney’s tax avoidance is legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become an issue in the campaign. President Barack Obama attacked him in their second debate for paying “lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less.”

In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity -- the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing -- to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefiting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires, according to tax returns obtained by Bloomberg this month through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In general, charities don’t owe capital gains taxes when they sell assets for a profit. Trusts like Romney’s permit funders to benefit from that tax-free treatment, said Jonathan Blattmachr, a trusts and estates lawyer who set up hundreds of such vehicles in the 1990s.

Near Zero

“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said. Despite the name, giving a gift or getting a charitable deduction “is just a throwaway,” he said. “I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero.”

When individuals fund a charitable remainder unitrust, or “CRUT,” they defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments. Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.

Romney’s CRUT, which is only a small part of the $250 million that Romney’s campaign cites as his net worth, has been paying him 8 percent of its assets each year. As the Romneys have received these payments, the money that will potentially be left for charity has declined from at least $750,000 in 2001 to $421,203 at the end of 2011.

Tax Returns

The Romney campaign declined to answer written questions about the trust.

“The trust has operated in accordance with the law,” Michele Davis, a campaign spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Paul Comstock, a financial adviser to LDS Philanthropies, an arm of the Mormon Church, said that while he wasn’t familiar with the trust, Romney and his trustee might arrange to compensate the church for the dwindling amount with other gifts.

“It may be that they’ve made provisions for the charity someplace else that will make up for what this isn’t going to give them,” Comstock said.

Bloomberg News obtained the trust’s tax returns from 2007 to 2011 from the Internal Revenue Service. Romney hasn’t disclosed the trust’s tax returns and is under no legal obligation to do so. He did make some disclosures about the trust’s investments in Massachusetts filings from 2002 to 2007 and as a presidential candidate in the current campaign.

After Death

Funds held by Romney’s trust are scheduled to be distributed after the death of Romney and his wife to “a charitable organization to be designated by Romney,” according to the 2007 filing, disclosing assets he held while governor of Massachusetts. “In the absence of such a designation the funds will go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

Davis declined to comment on whether Romney has designated another charity since then.

Romney has been an active member of the church, which expects members to donate 10 percent of their income. Over the years, he has donated millions of dollars of stock in Bain-owned companies to the church, securities filings show.

The church recommends such trusts on its website as one of many options for donors.

“Probably one of the advantages of a charitable remainder trust is that it helps with capital gains tax,” said Carl McLelland, an attorney in the planned giving office for LDS Philanthropies.

Capital Gains

CRUTs were more common in the 1990s when capital gains rates were higher. In 1996, when Romney set up his trust in Massachusetts, the federal rate was 28 percent, compared with 15 percent today. At the time, a Massachusetts state resident who sold shares for a gain of $1 million could have faced a combined state and federal capital gains tax of as much as 40 percent, reducing his take to $600,000.

By contrast, if he contributed the stock to a CRUT, and it sold the shares, it typically wouldn’t owe any tax since it is a charitable trust. The CRUT could reinvest the $1 million and earn a return on the full amount.

“The power of this is the tax deferral,” said Jay A. Friedman, a partner at accounting firm Perelson Weiner LLP in New York. “The money is all growing tax free and he only pays tax on what is distributed to him.”

Concerned that CRUTS weren’t sufficiently philanthropic, Congress mandated in July 1997 that the present value of what was projected to be left for charity must equal at least 10 percent of the initial contribution. Existing CRUTS weren’t affected by the new law.

Dwindling Principal

Romney’s trust was projected to leave to charity an amount with a present value of a little less than 8 percent of the initial contribution, according to an analysis by Friedman. Thus, the specifics of Romney’s trust wouldn’t have passed legal muster if it had been set up 13 months later, he said.

Because the trust’s investments have been earning a return far below its annual payouts to the Romneys, its principal has dwindled rapidly.

In 2001, five years after it was established, the trust had a value of between $750,000 and $1.25 million. Since then, it has pursued a conservative investment strategy -- regardless of the ups and downs of the stock market -- buying a mix of money- market funds, federally-backed bonds and federal bond funds. Since 2007, it has moved its assets entirely into cash. By 2011, its investments earned a return of $48, down from between $60,001 and $100,000 in 2001. It paid $36,696 to the Romneys in 2011.

Romneys Favored

The current investing strategy favors the Romneys over the charity because they get a guaranteed payout, said Michael Arlein, a trusts and estates lawyer at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.

“The Romneys get theirs off the top and the charity gets what’s left,” he said. “So by definition, if it’s not performing as well, the charity gets harmed more.”

The trustee for Romney’s CRUT is R. Bradford Malt, chairman of the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, and manager for Romney’s various family trusts as well as his personal attorney. Ropes & Gray has also been for years the main outside counsel for Bain Capital.

If the CRUT maintains the same investing strategy, assets will continue to shrink, said Jerome M. Hesch, a tax and estate planning attorney at the law firm Carlton Fields. The trustee acted prudently in protecting against losses during a stock market decline, he said.

Nevertheless, “what’s going to go to charity is probably close to nothing,” Hesch said.

http://www.bloomberg...-donations.html

[Ossi Vaananen]

A sterling example of an ad hominem logical fallacy.