Meet the Left's New Anti-Romney Spokesperson: His Horse

You can always count on Moveon.org to put out the most absurd ads of the bunch. And if you don't believe that, just take a look at some of their greatest hits, from "Not Alex"...

...to "No F--king way"...

...to "We Won't Go Back"...

...and finally, to this year's deceptive "GOP War on Women."

And now, Moveon.org has decided to bring their signature brand of tone deaf self-righteousness to the Presidential election, with an ad attacking GOP nominee Mitt Romney for spending too much on his horse's upkeep. A bit of a strange class warfare angle, considering Rafalca, the horse in question, is representing the United States in the Olympics, but one imagines they take what they get. However, how do they attack Romney using this horse's upkeep? By having the horse speak. In a posh British accent.

"How do I pull off such grace and athleticism while looking so good?” "Rafalca" asks. “Maybe it's because the Romneys spend $77,000 a year on my upkeep, and after Mitt Romney repeals healthcare and ships your job overseas, I daresay your life will not be nearly as pampered as mine. After all, you're not one of his horses."

Let Rafalca tell you about her life below:

Now, let's consider the implications of this ad, just for the sake of amusement. Romney apparently spends $77,000 on this horse's care - a figure Moveon probably got from this DailyKos diary about Romney's tax returns. Now, considering that the ad flashes an image saying that this is "almost twice the average American's income," presumably Moveon.org is angry that Romney isn't willing to spend that much money on "average Americans" through, say, entitlement programs like Obamacare. Leave aside the fact that this isn't actually his (or any President's) money to spend for a moment, and also the fact that the ad repeats the bogus "outsourcing" charge. What would government spending actually look like if Romney spent $77,000 per year per citizen?

The answer: It would almost quadruple the United States' spending. You see, a recent report Republican Senate Budget Committee showed that the United States actually lead the world in 2011 in the amount of money it spent per citizen, an amount which came to a whopping $20,000/person. $77,000 is almost four times that. That's quite a price tag to want the country to spend.

That is, unless Moveon wants Romney to be more modest in his spending habits on his horse. Which is fine, except the only reason the horse's cost is an issue is that Romney claims a tax credit for it. But does he? Apparently not (emphasis added):

The way this works is that the Romneys, the Ebelings, and Beth Meyers have together formed a corporate entity called "Rob Rom Enterprises LLC," which owns Rafalca and pays for his upkeep. The Romneys reported $77,731 in "passive losses" related to their investment in Rob Rom Enterprises, but of that their account only deemed $50 to be actually eligible for deduction. The forms don't explain the thinking behind that, but it's probably because losses from your horse corporation can't be used to offset unrelated income. If Rafalca had brought in more money, then Rafalca's care and feeding expenses could be deducted from that income, but in 2010 Rob Rom Enterprises doesn't seem to have had much income.

Romney's $77,000 horse costs the taxpayers a grand total of $50. So the ad isn't trying to make a point about the horse costing US taxpayers anything. And as established above, unless they're arguing for the US Government's spending to quadruple (which maybe they are, you never can tell with liberals), the ad doesn't really have a point.

This leaves only one option: Moveon.org thinks it can make Americans dislike Romney by making them jealous...of a horse.