Last week in a conference call, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney blamed his loss on what he called “gifts” to young and minority voters. Those comments drew criticism from even Republicans, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
And on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week,” they were criticized by Washington Post columnist George Will as well and likened it to his secretly taped “47 percent” remarks.
“Well, you begin where Bobby Jindal was,” Will said. “It’s been well said that you have a political problem when the voters don’t like you, but you’ve got a real problem when the voters think you don’t like them. And that is — Mitt Romney was picking up the theme he improvidently put before the country and inadvertently with his 47 percent video during the campaign.”
According to Will, many don’t pay taxes because of Republican policies, which he said was believed to be “an effective anti-poverty program.”
“Quit despising the American people, particularly because a lot of what they’re despising them for are Republican policies. When Mitt Romney said, ‘So many Americans aren’t paying taxes,’ yeah, because the Republicans doubled the child tax credit for conservative reasons, yes, because they expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, as Ronald Reagan did, because they thought it was an effective anti-poverty program.”