With his dismissal of 47 percent of Americans this week, Mitt Romney gave Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston an opportunity to talk about how Republicans blame members of the public for the economic conditions conservatives have made for them.

Of Romney’s claim that almost half of Americans pay no income tax and, in his opinion, mistakenly believe themselves entitled to basic necessities of life, Johnston said on “Democracy Now!”:

“Well, first of all, he’s conflating totally unrelated things. Many of the 47 percent he’s talking about are people who work. They work at crummy jobs at crummy pay. Because of the Republicans, a married couple with two children does not pay income taxes until they make $44,000 a year. That’s because of the Republicans promoting the $1,000-per-child tax credit. So, he’s actually insulting many of the people who voted or likely would vote for him. Many of the people in this 47 percent, which is a brief anomaly because of the economy, are retirees, people who worked all their lives. Now they’re retired, and because Social Security is their major form of income, they don’t make enough money to pay taxes. This is an astonishing statement by him to suggest that 47 percent of the population are moochers who just live off the government.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Democracy Now!: