As you may have heard, a video surfaced of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney pandering to a wealthy group of potential donors, in which he described 47 percent of Americans as people who "pay no income tax," and are committed Obama voters addicted to the government teat.
That's good news for President Obama in Arizona, because according to the most recent tally done by a national tax-policy organization, Arizona has the 14th-highest percentage of federal income tax "non-payers" in the nation.
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney says in the video. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
He continued, "That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax."
The exact source of this "47 percent" number is hard to track down, but according to one of the organizations concerned about the number of Americans with no federal income tax liability, the Tax Foundation, that number was somewhere between 40 and 45 percent in 2010. For 2008 --when the number of "non-payers" was estimated to be around 36 percent, the Tax Foundation released a handy state-by-state map to show the proportion of "non-payers" by state.
So, according to this map, and Romney Math™, Arizona -- with 37 percent of the state's residents being "non-payers" -- had the 14th-highest proportion of committed Obama voters out of the 50 states.
Of course, Senator John McCain took Arizona in 2008, during his presidential bid. In fact, McCain took eight of the 10 states with the highest amount of "non-payers."
Oh well, Romney was just riling up his base, yadda, yadda, yadda. But considering that every state south of Virginia had a "non-payer" rate above the national rate, he may be confused about whom he's writing off as Obama voters.
