For the second time in as many months, Mitt Romney unveiled another tax plan recently, and this one was intended to make his party's far-right base even happier. There's a lot for a conservative to like: major new tax breaks for the wealthy, slashing the corporate tax rate, and eliminating estate taxes altogether.
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center published a fairly detailed analysis of Romney's new proposal and found that it's not only heavily tilted to benefit the rich, it also would make the deficit much worse -- by nearly a half-trillion dollars in 2015 alone -- because the former governor has made no effort to explain how he'd pay for these unnecessary tax breaks.
The Republican frontrunner talked to CNBC's "Squawk Box" this morning, and defended his odd approach to fiscal responsibility.
Pat Garofalo ran this partial transcript of Romney's comments:
"What I say is we're going to cut the top marginal rate across-the-board by 20 percent, and at the same time, we're going to limit deductions and exemptions to pay for most of that and then additional growth will pay for the rest of that such that our plan doesn't increase the deficit. [...]
"I haven't laid out all the details of how we're going to deal with each one of the deductions and exemptions, so I think it's kind of interesting for the groups who try and score it because, frankly, it can't be scored because those kinds of details are going to have be worked out with Congress."
Even for Romney, this is just weak. As WonkBlog noted this morning, "A tax plan that can't be scored because it doesn't include sufficient details is not a plan.... [Romney] has a statement about what he would like a reformed tax system to include: lower rates for everyone. But that's cake-and-ice-cream stuff. All the hard questions -- which tax breaks to close, for instance -- remain unanswered, and it doesn't appear that he plans to answer them anytime soon."
This belies any claims Romney makes to policy seriousness. In effect, he's arguing, "Sure, it looks like massive tax breaks and unspecified cuts will make the deficit drastically worse, but don't listen to those sticklers with calculators."
The moment Romney admitted his plan "can't be scored" is the moment he gave away the game. If he lacks the courage to present a detailed proposal, he lacks the ability to participate in the grown-ups' conversation.
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I'd say he lacks the "details" to present a detailed proposal as the "boys" haven't told him what they are yet. He's got Nutten, Honey!
and also already adding the disclaimer....that this all depends on what congress will let him do....if the plan is so great...why wouldn't a Republican held congress not back his plan....you're right....Nutten Honey!!!
"I haven't laid out all the details yet..."
lmao.
Yessirree Bob, it's called flippty, floppity, floop. That's the name of his tax plan
There hasn't been a plan, nor a budget passed since 2008. A price manager at the dollar store could do a better job than the current president and senate.
POTUS doesn't have control over whether or not a budget is passed. Additionally a budget has to be passed every year. What you mean to say is that a new budget proposal hasn't been passed since 2009 when PBO's first budget proposal was passed. Every budget that has been passed since has been an extension of the first. Why? Because of Republican filibustering.
But, ya know, don't let the facts stop you.
@Mouzer....how dare you use that "Four letter word".....Fact.
No God fearing Republican would use such a word....shame on you for asking.....and you forget that Democratic Presidents do not invoke their Powers of Dictatorship like Republicans.
"I can't actually put out details and have my plan scored on what it would do to the deficit! I'm running for office, for Pete's sake!"
LOL Seriously! LOL
Go Brooklyn!
perfect timing Brooklyn....lmao
Hahahah... Brooklyn got it so right lol!!
Sounds like Obama care. " You will have to pass it to find out what is in it."
Pelosi, smarts that defies logic.
Once again here is Pelosi's quote in context:
She was not saying that Congress didn't know what was in it or that she didn't know what was in it, she was addressing the general public at a health care summit in which she was talking about what was in the bill. She then made this remark and went on to bash how distorted the media had been regarding the bill.
It doesn't make your side appear more intelligent or your arguments against health care reform seem more salient when the most you can come up w/ is taking a speech in which you misquote the person so that it sounds like she's saying the complete opposite of what she actually said. This makes you appear the fool and makes the legislation sound better. This is just like Breitbart taking Shirley Sherrod out of context to make it sound like she was advocating racism when in fact she was advocating against racism. Here Pelosi is advocating against distortions about the health care bill and what do you do? Use her statement to distort the health care bill. Cause, ya know, don't let the facts stop you.
@chemdmd: Just a few things:
The liberal media's insistence on facts and substance is so very inconvenient for the pie in the sky promises of Mitt.
... especially when it appears that the Republican game plan on a variety of jobs/economy related issues is to use keywords like freedom, getting rid of the opporessive hand of government in our daily lives, and (my favorite) personal choice (as long as you're not talking about abortion, same sex marriage, or birth control).
I wish the media would hold him responsible for that, I mean the obvious follow up question is "If it can't be scored why should we believe anything you claim?"
Steve,
Consider going further into that interview and looking at Romney's response to the question about how to tax carried interest. I watched it, and as I recall, it went something like this.
1. If carried interest is ordinary income (it is), then it should be taxed as ordinary income.
2. If carried interest is capital gains (it isn't), then it should be taxed as capital gains.
3. This isn't an issue for the President and Congress. Let the IRS decide.
In other words...I don't know, and I don't care.
I'll add that, in my humble, ordinary income and capital gains should be taxed at precisely the same rates. There's no reason that our tax structure should rank capital above labor.
Amen, CJ - in the cases of both capital and labor, one exchanges something of value for money.
Romney's "plan" is obviously to help the wealthy, and when it comes to paying for it, let his friends in Corporate Lobbyland tell Congress how to do it. No doubt that would end up meaning CEOs can deduct their vacations, show horses, yachts and jets, but regular folks can't deduct sh!t.
The thought behind taxing capital gains differently from wages is based upon the idea that we want people to save and invest. That money is then available for others to use, whether it's banks lending money, or stocks or other businesses, to create business opportunities, hire employees, and stimulate our long-term economy. The hope is that long term investing makes our overall economy stronger.
The economy that profits from labor and labor only profits greatly, we need not be feeding monsters, to appease them, for they are always hungry.
Taxing capital gains heavily would address the need to redirect those profits (from idle asset, speculation, currency market/asset manipulations) back into the productive investments.
A tax or invest strategy.
Investments made to escape taxation would need to be carefully made using intelligence, enterprise, ingenuity, effort, creativity, new resources, new ideas, new software, and new systems that all come from employed people. Since we have these inputs in abundance, and we have idle unemployed people, where is the risk?
The risk is that we have too many ineffective managers; ineffective managers are those who cannot manage those with having skills and assure that the work gets done. Ineffective managers look the same as anyone else, but their heads either are empty, or filled with MBAs, when their heads should be filled with experience and solutions that need only the application of skills, skills that they so often do not understand. Rigid thinking, inability to adjust to the situation, seeks to blame others and accepts no risk.
You worry that an investment is a risk, but hire those who cannot accept risks, how’s that working for you>
The world cannot live by capital gains alone; the fruit of production shall not rot in the vine, the bread of production feeds it, the bank vault filled to the brim being nothing to the economic table.
Try lifting your weight in wealth, if cannot move your weight or your wealth, then a tax on capital gains might help. Consult your doctor before actually doing something, beside just stand here.
The thought behind taxing capital gains differently from wages is based upon the idea that we want people to save and invest.
With respect Bob, the save and invest argument is what they want us to believe. The underlying reason for taxing capital gains (and dividends) at lower rates is so that people who receive most of the their incomes from investments will get to pay lower taxes--the result being that the rest of us have to make up the difference.
The people who earn most of their money from labor are subsidizing those who make most of their money from investments (and inheritances), and that ain't right.
Well, I guess it's sort of good to know that despite the economic carnage unleashed by the last administration, Mr. Consistency's priorities remain uncorrupted by reality. Would hate for him to come to his senses now and ruin his chance to lose decisively in November.
Nice try Romney! The last time I looked he was outnumbered 99-1. He has no real plan except to sit back and collect his paycheck not that he needs it. He gets to call up his rich friends and say "Look I'm President ,nananananana!" and then he will sit on Bush's right side as one of the worst Presidents in History. I think Republicans that vote for him actually think that he is going to protect their money. That is the furthest thing from his mind. He wants all of us to keep working while he continues his retirement. I've been working since I was 13. I would like to retire someday. There are more important things than money and I don't really have any interest in competing with anyone. I am happy take that to the bank and try to cash it.
Romney can take his check to the bank and cash it because he owns the bank. He has no reason to care about the rest of us, retired or otherwise.
Let's keep him in retirement by re-electing Obama.
"Voodoo economics" worked for Reagan didn't it? Didn't it? It got him elected, didn't it? Doesn't the fact I am using Reagan's tax plan mean I too am a "Reagan Republican"?? - Willard
You have to understand, Willard is the "annointed one" of the Moron, er, I mean Mormon Church, the one who will be president and lead America to true greatness. All he needs is people dumb enough to believe b.s. that's as transparent as the b.s. propagated by the carny Joseph Smith.
(That term is one of the statements that always makes me respect George H.W. Bush as the last competent and intelligent Republican to ever hold office)
Whatever message you may hope to promulgate is lost, at least to me, when you disparage a religious group. There are many things to criticize about Romney and the Republican approach to economics in general, but name-calling of any religion is counter-productive.
Feel free to make fun of any religious group. You're not going to Hell, we're already here and there's a tax plan that can't be scored!
Romney reminds me of the people who show up at Judge Judy with no evidence, no corroborating witnesses and no real case other than insisting, "I didn't wreck her car!" My reaction to what Romney said this morning parallels what the judge tells those sorts of people coming before her on the show: "You're being ree-dick-a-luss!"
No one can score your tax plan, Mitt? "You're ree-dick-a-luss!"
Do any of these clowns have a plan that can be scored? With the supply-side voodoo, there is never a discernable path to economic recovery. It's all faith-based economics.
no...they are waiting to get into office and have their advisers come up with that "stuff". Herman Cain says you don't have to know any of that "Stuff", The White House staff has all that covered. Palin didn't even know WTF the Fed was.
OMG...I can't do this sober.....see ya at happy hour!!!
I am thrilled beyond words that in a nation of over 300 million human beings, Mittens has developed a tax plan to benefit himself almost exclusively. A real "Man of The People," that Romney. I can't wait to see the details get hammered out; He'll probably have the rest of us pitching in to buy him a new house and polo pony.
he's not giving the details because he's going to handle it the same way he handled most of the companies he took over at bain. saddle it with debt then sell it off..except we won't get anything for it but he'll get a nice presidential library in one of his home states.
Over and over again, he lacks leadership.
Someone can not take a pay cut, go buy a Jaguar and expect to pay for it by cutting cable out of their household budget. Yet that's how the Republicans want to solve our debt crisis!
I think I get it? Would look exactly like a Basket Ball game for non athletes, everthing the same, but there would be no Hoops to keep Score. No balls either or a very tiny, tiny, tiny pair.
What was that about? The Congress part, any reason that we could not guess from the past that this would be a problem? Really?
All I hear in Romney's plan is the tax cut for the 1% and also is talking about these government programs that in his plan will take away....
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/15/more-ohio-kids-living-in-poverty-lunch-program-shows.html
Tons of poor kids are receiving subsidized school lunches, or, as this sort of thing is known in Republican circles, "The culture of entitlement in Ohio."
Romney is right. If Congress were to actually take up tax reform, the specifics would be debated by a bipartisan committee, not based on a Presidential candidate’s campaign trail tax reform proposal.
It is important to remember that a sensible tax reform plan already exists; it’s called the bi-partisan Bowles-Simpson proposal and it does outline specific scenarios for reforming the tax code to increase tax fairness and promote economic growth http://bit.ly/noTDPF
A hostile takeover is a fitting description. By focusing on the wealthy within the republican party, Romney is showing that he doesn't need the financial support or the votes from the majority of the base to gain the GOP nomination.
He makes quite clear with a laundry list of proposals how he intends to help the wealthy; abolish the estate tax, lower the corporate tax rate, end the repatriation tax, tax cuts for the "job creators", repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax, corporate deregulation, etc. But when it comes to the needs and concerns of the base, he offers empty platitudes.
Dumb as I am, I am still waiting for the Iraq war to pay for itself. GW was also allegedly a business man, but I guess we are supposed to forget those memorable decisions. Start a war and cut taxes resounds throughout the GOP campaign.again.
Yeah, he was a business man. All of his businesses were failures...much like his presidency.
But he couldn't file bankruptcy on his presidency.
Bush couldn't file bankruptcy, but the country is.
We're gonna miss Bush if any of these Bozos are elected.
I wonder if anyone ever won the presidency on a platform of vagueness?
Presidents are elected for wide variety of reasons that are not rational in the least. Vagueness would be new, random would be ordinary, exceptional would be lucky or rare, dying in office would be problematical, and those appointed in purchased elections are the only ones that have endangered us. These are stains that cannot be washed away, but must, fade, under the burdens we must all now carry for a very, very long time, a time just a bit past living memory.
This reminds me of that cartoon where there's a bunch of equations on one side of the chalk board and a bunch of equations on the other side and in the middle it says, "Then a miracle occurs...". The caption read, "I think you should be more explicit here in step two."
http://redscharlach.tumblr.com/post/15954721758/this-is-a-well-known-science-cartoon-from-the
The key point is classical 'voodoo economics": tax deductions will increase growth, therefore tax collection as a total will increase. Since that growth cannot be predicted (but it'll be huge!) it covers any deficit. - Never worked before, but right-wing "economists" (sorry, this is pure ideology, not any kind of economic theory) will continue to promise it will, this time, if we try extra-hard.
Sad thing is, a few years ago I heard the economists behind the premise talk about the original idea and they were kind of horrified how it had become perverted and simplified into something that bears no resemblance to their idea or for that matter any sane idea. Do you notice how the Republicans these days don't even try and use their old "don't tax the businesses so hard" excuse (which was somewhat closer to the idea) and pretty much flat-out admitting they want to make the rich richer? I know that's what they said in Indiana when they decided they'd start phasing out the inheritance tax.
If the Trickle down theory works why hasn't it yet? How long do they need to prove this? I think the biggest problem our country may be facing right now is Right wing ignorance. If Romney truly knows that his plans won't work which he must truly know, why is he running for President? He knows that most Republicans right now are wearing rose-colored glasses if they have any sense at all or any regard for their children they will not vote this election. Better be safe than sorry. He will not aplogize he, will ignore you and me, we are merely peasants.
For all that Republicans are hard core about fighting the Drug War, their behavior with regards to tax cuts is remarkably like an addict. Tax cuts not giving you the same high as before, double down, repeated over and over.
Restore our future = restore Bush policies. But look at the bright side; deficits will once again no longer matter.
Facts? You want facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts.
@Mike, that's priceless!!
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, right? Only "badges" not "facts".
But, it states the problem with Repub "thinking".
The American people seem to have forgotten that in the absence of discussion based on agreed facts there can be no agreement until force is applied. This is one way to view the events of 1859, 1860, and 1861. We do not want to do that again, do we?
All politicians play fast and loose with facts or they try to be as ambiguous as the media will allow them. It is incumbent on the media to ask the hard questions and stop worrying about whether a politician will be on your talk shows. Any time there is a camera politicians will be there. Republicans cannot hide out at Fox during the elections; people will notice.
My wife, who knows little about politics but who understands math just fine was listening to Willard last night. In his speech, he talked about the 20% tax cut for everyone while railing at Obama for doubling the debt. She turned to me and said, this guy is an iddiot, how is he cutting taxes and promising to balancing the budget? I said, he doesn't know either, but it sounds real good.