Nowhere in America has the housing crisis hit harder than Nevada, the site of the next step in the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nomination contest. While the issue of housing might be foremost in the minds of Nevadans, they have heard strikingly little from the GOP’s leading candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), for instance, told Nevadans that they shouldn’t try to stop the foreclosure process in October, a statement that earned a strong rebuke from Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and other state Republicans. After seemingly changing his position on housing in Florida, another state that has been ravaged by foreclosures and falling home prices, Romney has mostly avoided the subject since coming to Nevada.

Letting “markets work,” however, isn’t likely to help the Nevadans who are struggling to deal with falling home prices, high foreclosure rates, and underwater mortgages. With that in mind, here’s a look at just how hard the housing crisis has hit the state:

60: Consecutive months that Nevada has led the nation in foreclosures.

177: One in every 177 Nevada homes was in foreclosure in December 2011. Nationally, 1 of every 634 homes is in foreclosure.

58: Percent of Nevada homeowners that are underwater — meaning they owe more than their home is worth. The national average is 22.1 percent.

10.6: Percent drop in Nevada home prices in 2011, the second-worst rate in the nation.

167,000: Number of vacant Nevada homes. The rate of vacancies, about 1-in-7, has doubled since 2000.

1: Las Vegas’ rank among the worst cities for foreclosures. One of every 150 Las Vegas homes is in foreclosure, the highest rate in the nation. Two-thirds of the city’s homeowners are underwater.

9.1: Percent drop in Las Vegas home values since November 2010, the second-worst performance of the 20 cities surveyed by Case Shiller and Standard & Poor’s.

70: Percent of homes in foreclosure in one Summerlin, Nevada ZIP code, according to local real estate agents.

89031: The North Las Vegas ZIP code that is the worst in the nation for foreclosures. The five worst ZIP codes for foreclosures are all in Las Vegas.

According to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, U.S. corporations paid just a 12.1 percent tax rate in fiscal 2011 on their U.S. profits, a 40 year low. This fact flies in the face of Republican rhetoric, as the GOP consistently claims that the U.S.’s high corporate tax rate is hurting the economy.

Today, House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was asked about the new CBO numbers during an interview on CNBC. Far from admitting that, in fact, the U.S. is a very low-tax country for corporations, McCarthy tried to insist that U.S. corporate taxes are high, incoherently babbling, “If you look at every rate where you go through, America is the second highest where they go”:

Q: Congressman, do you think that perhaps Obama’s lower taxes are working here? The Journal reports this morning that the effective tax rate which American corporations are now being taxed is at a 40 year low, 12.1 percent. Partly, of course, because we’re forgoing $55 billion a year so they could immediately write down their investments. Are those tax cuts working and, in your view, is it right, are they good value for money to add to the deficit?

MCCARTHY: Look, I see our tax system as holding us back. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. [...]

Q: But Congressman, aren’t the new figures from the CBO indicating that America does not have a very high tax rate? The effective tax rate in fiscal year to the end of September was 12.1 percent according to the CBO. That is a very low rate of corporate taxation.

MCCARTHY: If you look at every rate where you go through, America is the second highest where they go. If you look at how the jobs are departed, you find that statistically we are too high…Statistically, I don’t see where the argument stands.

Watch it:

When looking at the rate that corporations actually pay (as opposed to the statutory rate on paper), the U.S. has the second-lowest corporate tax rate in the developed world, not the second-highest. The U.S. raises far less than other nations in corporate tax revenue and U.S. corporations pay a far lower effective rate than their foreign competitors:

Of course, McCarthy can’t even be bothered to understand the economic policies prescribed in his own book, so it’s not very surprising that he has a difficult time grappling with hard facts from the CBO too.

This week, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney admitted that he is “not concerned about the very poor,” a jarring sentiment that nonetheless seems to encapsulate the Republican party’s view of income inequality. Be it through budget cuts, tax breaks, or prejudicial eligibility requirements for government benefits, members of the GOP are prioritizing America’s wealthy at the expense of America’s most vulnerable.

There are some Republicans, however, who aren’t subscribing to this agenda. According to a new poll, a majority of low-income Republicans believe that the America’s economic system unfairly favors the wealthy and that the government does not do enough to help the poor:

In a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early October, 57% of lower-income Republican and Republican-leaning voters said the government does too little for poor people. Just 18% said it does too much.

By contrast, higher-income Republicans took the opposite view; by roughly two-to-one (44% to 21%) Republicans with incomes of $75,000 or more said the government does too much, not too little, for poor people.

Indeed, while sharing the public’s general distrust of the government, 70 percent of low-income Republicans agree with the 99 percent movement that “a few rich people and corporations have too much power in the U.S.” And given that nearly half of all Americans are one financial shock away from falling into poverty, it is no wonder that even Republicans are questioning their party’s priorities.

In recent decades, corporate tax revenue has plunged, falling from about 6 percent of gross domestic product in the 1950′s to less than 2 percent today, due to a proliferation of corporate tax breaks and the use of offshore tax havens. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in fact, corporate tax receipts as a share of corporate profits have hit their lowest point in 40 years:

Corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years.

Total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.

Even the 25.6 percent share of profits that went to corporate taxes over the last quarter century comes in below the top statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Meanwhile, corporate profits are currently at a 60 year high, rebounding back to above where they were before the Great Recession hit.

At the same time that corporations are pulling in huge amounts of money, workers are seeing their wages shrink. Last year, real wages fell by 2 percent, and “many employees are also working longer hours and getting more done without raises or overtime pay.” “Part of the reason why business profits are so high is it is a zero-sum game, so labor is on the losing end of that,” said Aaron Smith, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Businesses are getting more out of each worker they have.”

During an interview last night with Nevada reporter Jon Ralston, Mitt Romney attempted to walk back his statement that he is “not concerned with the very poor.” “It was a mistake. I misspoke,” Romney said:

ROMNEY: It was a mistake. I misspoke. I’ve said something that is similar to that, but quite acceptable, for a long time. And you know, when you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews, now and then you may get it wrong. And I misspoke. Plain and simple.

RALSTON: What did you mean to say?

ROMNEY: Well, what I said was that my focus, my primary focus, is on helping people get in the middle class and grow the middle class. That we have a safety net that cares for the poor, I want to keep that safety net strong and able. The wealthy are doing just fine. But we really need to focus on the middle income people in this country. And you know what, if people are going to go after me when I make a mistake — when I slip up on a word I say, even when I say I got it wrong, sorry, that’s not what I meant — you know that’s part of the political process and I understand that.

Watch it:

However, Romney’s claim that he misspoke flies in the face of the fact that he’s used similar language before to explain his lack of concern for the poor. “The people who need the help the most are not the poor, who have a safety net,” Romney explained during an Oct. 20 town hall at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. “The very poor have a safety net, they’re taken care of,” he said in an October debate.

According to the latest data, the percentage of Americans qualifying as “very poor” — meaning that they live in a household with an income of less than half the federal poverty rate — has hit a 35 year high, so they are decidedly not taken care of. And Romney’s economic plan wouldn’t make them any better off. In fact, Romney would raise taxes on 20 percent of households making between $10,000 and $20,000, because of his less generous tax credits.

Not only that, but his plan would cut critical safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid, and limit the ability “to leverage federal resources to provide necessary social services to assist people in need.” As the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Desmond Brown wrote, Romney’s plan “would provide $2.24 trillion in tax breaks to the superrich while cutting $2.17 trillion from critical health care services for poor and elderly Americans.”