Obama ad targets Romney on untaxed Americans

By JULIE PACE, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — President Barack Obama's campaign is launching its first television advertisement targeting Mitt Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay income taxes, arguing the GOP nominee should stop attacking others on taxes and "come clean" on his own.

The ad signaled that Obama will keep making Romney's personal finances a campaign issue even after the Republican released a second year of information about his taxes. The campaign will start running the ad Monday in Ohio, where Romney will campaign this week.

The 30-second ad opens with a video of Romney at a private fundraiser in May, where he told donors that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income taxes, believe they are victims, and feel entitled to government assistance.

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"My job is not to worry about those people," Romney says in the video, which was taped without his knowledge.

A narrator in the Obama ad responds, "Isn't it the president's job to worry about everyone?"

The ad also references details about Romney's personal tax returns, including his disclosure Friday that he and wife Ann Romney paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011. That rate is lower than millions of middle-income Americans, but more than Romney had to pay.

The tax documents released Friday show Romney, one of the wealthiest candidates ever to seek the presidency, paid nearly $2 million in federal taxes on $13.7 million in income. Romney's income was from investment returns, which are taxed at a lower rate than income that comes mostly from wages.