"But the notion that 47 percent of Americans choose to be idle moochers is misleading" Damn right it is misleading because Romney never said that. Romney said that 47% of the voters were going to vote for Obama no matter how strong a campaign he (Romney) ran. And that was true. Then he listed some of the reasons why people were in that 47%. The actual number of people that pay no taxes at the time was 49% so he clearly was not talking about that group.