Obama’s Ruse To Box Mitt Romney On Taxes
from TPM.... http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/obamas-ruse-to-box-mitt-romney-on-taxes.php?ref=fpa
Tired of calling on Mitt Romney to flesh out what tax loopholes he would close to pay for his large tax cuts, President Obama has taken a new tack: warn middle class voters of the worst, and goad the Republican nominee into proving him wrong.
It’s a lose-lose proposition for Romney, who is trailing Obama in key battleground states with Election Day just weeks away, because any answer would invite further criticism.
In separate campaign trail speeches late last week, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden implied that Romney would raise taxes on middle class homeowners and Social Security recipients to cover the cost of his promised across-the-board 20 percent cut in income tax rates.
“I refuse to ask middle class families to give up your deduction for owning a home or raising kids just so we pay for another millionaire’s tax cut,” Obama said Thursday in Virginia Beach. His campaign confirmed that he was promising not to limit the deductability of home mortgage interest, a popular and expensive tax expenditure enjoyed by many in the middle class.
Friday in Boca Raton, Fla., Biden plainly asserted that Romney would unwind the tax exemption on Social Security income for the elderly.
“If Governor Romney’s plan goes into effect it could mean that every one of you would be paying more taxes on your Social Security,” Biden said on the stump. “The average senior would have to pay $460 a year more in taxes for their Social Security.”
The president and vice president couldn’t offer proof because there isn’t any: Romney has steadfastly refused to specify any tax credits or deductions he would target in order to pay for his trillions of dollars in tax cuts. But his contradictory promises — to cut taxes on the middle class without raising them on the rich or increasing the deficit — have earned criticism as to whether his proposal is mathematically feasible. Studies have found that it is not — unless middle class incomes are defined downward from the agreed-upon $250,000.
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