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When George W. Bush was running for president on a platform of extravagant tax cuts for all, his campaign did something that would be considered remarkable today: it submitted his tax plan to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, to see how much all those tax cuts would cost
Within a decade, in fact, they would turn out to be the biggest factor in the huge deficit he created.
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, claims his far deeper tax cuts would have a price tag of exactly zero dollars.
He has no intention of submitting his tax plan to the committee or anywhere else that might conduct a serious analysis, since he seems intent on running a campaign far more opaque than any candidate has in years.
He has made his economic plan the fundamental basis of his candidacy, and yet with the Republican convention just two weeks away, we know next to nothing of the plan’s details.
The extreme cuts proposed by his new running mate, Paul Ryan, are far more hard-edged, making Mr. Romney’s mathematically impossible promises look vague and shopworn by comparison.
For example, Romney wants to keep all the Bush tax cuts, then cut taxes much further, particularly for the rich, but he says the plan won’t grow the deficit by a dime.
He won’t say how he will accomplish this — there are no real numbers in his plan beyond a vague pledge to eliminate some loopholes.
Earlier this month, a nonpartisan group of tax experts took matters into their own hands and tried to analyze the tax plan.
Romney said the cuts would be “revenue neutral” and cost nothing because they would be paid for by ending tax breaks and loopholes.
He never identified those tax breaks, and now we know why — the experts concluded that there aren’t enough loopholes in the tax code to balance out the cuts.
Following Romney’s plan would mean ending popular deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions, which would wind up raising taxes on the middle class, while the rich would still enjoy the benefits of an income-tax cut larger than the deductions they would lose.
The Romney campaign decided long ago that it didn’t need a real economic plan of its own when it could just bash the president’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/romneys-tax-plan-defies-the-rules-of-math.html
Within a decade, in fact, they would turn out to be the biggest factor in the huge deficit he created.
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, claims his far deeper tax cuts would have a price tag of exactly zero dollars.
He has no intention of submitting his tax plan to the committee or anywhere else that might conduct a serious analysis, since he seems intent on running a campaign far more opaque than any candidate has in years.
He has made his economic plan the fundamental basis of his candidacy, and yet with the Republican convention just two weeks away, we know next to nothing of the plan’s details.
The extreme cuts proposed by his new running mate, Paul Ryan, are far more hard-edged, making Mr. Romney’s mathematically impossible promises look vague and shopworn by comparison.
For example, Romney wants to keep all the Bush tax cuts, then cut taxes much further, particularly for the rich, but he says the plan won’t grow the deficit by a dime.
He won’t say how he will accomplish this — there are no real numbers in his plan beyond a vague pledge to eliminate some loopholes.
Earlier this month, a nonpartisan group of tax experts took matters into their own hands and tried to analyze the tax plan.
Romney said the cuts would be “revenue neutral” and cost nothing because they would be paid for by ending tax breaks and loopholes.
He never identified those tax breaks, and now we know why — the experts concluded that there aren’t enough loopholes in the tax code to balance out the cuts.
Following Romney’s plan would mean ending popular deductions for mortgage interest and charitable contributions, which would wind up raising taxes on the middle class, while the rich would still enjoy the benefits of an income-tax cut larger than the deductions they would lose.
The Romney campaign decided long ago that it didn’t need a real economic plan of its own when it could just bash the president’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/romneys-tax-plan-defies-the-rules-of-math.html
