Romney's problem: His plans *really would* benefit the rich . . .
Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS
Romney's problem: His plans *really would* benefit rich at expense of middle class. In AM Roundup: http://wapo.st/QmYLp9 (article by Sargent)
_____ Case in point: The new ad that the Romney campaign rolled out this morning, which is a very good preview of what to expect at the debates:
The ad claims Obama and the “liberals” would raise middle class taxes, and says: “Mitt Romney and common sense conservatives would cut taxes on the middle class, and they’ll close loopholes for millionaires . . .”
The ad’s claim that he’d cut taxes on the middle class while closing loopholes for millionaires glosses over some inconvenient realities. Romney’s proposed across the board tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the rich. As for closing loopholes for millionaires, the Tax Policy Center found that the plan cannot be paid for in that fashion; if you are going to keep it revenue neutral, as Romney has claimed, you’d need to target loopholes enjoyed by middle class Americans, ultimately hiking their tax burden. (Paul Ryan has explicitly acknowledged that Romney would proceed with tax cuts even if the math can’t be made to work.)
The larger point here, though, is that Romney’s broader agenda really would benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else. He has embraced the Ryan agenda, which “would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history,” as Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently put it. Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare would do away with its core mission over time, ultimately translating into higher medical costs for seniors — even as Romney would dramatically reduce the amount the rich contribute towards deficit reduction. Repealing Obamacare would take away health insurance from millions.
Romney’s answer to all this is that cutting taxes and deregulation — getting government out of the way — will ultimately benefit everybody. Indeed, today’s Post reports that the Romney camp is hard at work on an explanation for his lethal remarks about the freeloading 47 percent. He will say that he’s “for the 100 percent,” and that his policies will benefit the millions of struggling Americans failed by Obama’s policies.
The problem for Romney is that this claim — that his policies will help everybody — simply isn’t credible. Camp Romney continues to treat his 47 percent remarks, and his plutocratic aura, as something that can be corrected with a few well-placed lines and a softening of his image. But what Romney really needs to explain is how his policies would benefit everybody. This is tough to do, since any substantive discussion of them risks reminding voters that they represent a return to Bush economics. So Romney is forced to resort to evasions like the ones in the new ad. This has at least a chance of working in a controlled setting like a TV spot. But at the debates, Romney won’t be the only one on the stage.
read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-mitt-romney-scourge-of-millionaires/2012/10/02/7f70890c-0c7b-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_blog.html
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