NYT's Bruce Bartlett: Exploring Mitt Romney’s Taxes and Tax Plan
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/exploring-mitt-romneys-taxes-and-tax-plan/
Bartlett's a long-time Republican operative.
The distribution of income is extremely relevant for Mr. Romney tax plan. He has said that he will close enough tax loopholes so that the wealthy will pay the same share of taxes they are paying now, even though he will cut their income tax rates by 20 percent. However, he has also said that the current low rates on dividends and capital gains, which expire at year’s end, will be made permanent.
Thus Mr. Romney would preserve exactly those provisions of the tax code most responsible for millionaires like himself paying tax rates considerably lower than those with a fraction of his income, like Mr. Ryan.
It is principally for this reason that the Tax Policy Center recently concluded that Mr. Romney’s numbers don’t add up. Either he will greatly increase the deficit or he will have to raise taxes on the middle class to maintain revenue neutrality. Even if every deduction, exclusion and credit for the wealthy was abolished, their taxes would still go down under Mr. Romney’s plan.
Democrats have said that the Romney tax plan would raise taxes on the middle class. While this is logically consistent with what Mr. Romney has said about his plan, I do not believe that is his intention or what will happen if he is elected president. Rather, I think he and his advisers simply made up a proposal that was everything to everybody without bothering to check for internal consistency.
Well that does sound like our boy, Mitt. Emphasis mine.
= new reply since forum marked as read
