Some people are allergic to pollen, or peanut butter. Mitt Romney seems to be allergic to specifics. It’s an allergy he can’t seem to shake, despite his campaign’s promises to the contrary, and though it flares up around a hosts of topics — immigration policy or deficit reduction, for instance — it is perhaps most active when the discussion turns to taxation.
CBS’s Scott Pelley asked Romney what the individual federal income tax rates would be if they were his to set.
"They'd be the current rates less 20 percent," Romney responded, explaining that all the rates, including those of the highest earners, would come down. "But," Romney warned, "lest people think there’s going to be a huge reduction in the taxes they owe, that's really not the case because we're also going to limit deductions and exemptions." He declined to get into specifics on which deductions he intended to eliminate, only saying "that's something Congress and I will have to work out together."
He repeated that sentiment at a rally in Ohio on Tuesday, telling the crowd, "Our individual income taxes are ones I want to reform. I want to bring the rates down. By the way, don't be expecting a huge cut in taxes, because I’m also going to lower deductions and exemptions." There’s that pesky allergy acting up.
Romney puts a large emphasis on reducing the deficit and balancing the budget, yet it's unclear with an across-the-board income tax cut where he will find the revenue to do so. His "take-home pay" message and his "deficit reduction" message seem to be at odds. This is where details matter.
As we approach the first debate, Romney's campaign is starting to inch towards more specificity.
Alarm bells went off for tax nerds this week after Romney advisor Kevin Hassett said, "he's said he's going to have a revenue-neutral reform." He continued, "If you think the base-broadeners don't add up, if you think he can't get to 28 percent, then the right thing that would happen, as you know, if you're going to have a revenue-neutral reform, is that they would have a different change in rates. That's what would happen." Hassett confirmed the first principle is revenue-neutrality, not rate cuts.
While revenue-neutrality isn't deficit reduction, it means the total taxes collected would be the same (as Romney reminds us daily, the nation is $16 trillion in debt) but with a different calculus.
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Lets get real, O'Donnell.
1.3 anemic GDP rate now expected for the third quater with Durable Goods orders falling by 13 percentage points, to worst levels in several years. Housing sales down 2.7% in August, and the new figures for the loss if income by average MNiddfle Class families uner the Obama Administration now at $4,300 dollars.
Bloomberg News poll out today; Who would be best to handle terrorism? Romney 48%, Obama 42%.
Whether its the economy or foreign affairs, its back to the 1970s and the failed Democrat President Jimmy Carter we are seeing again now in this amateur President Obama with all the wrong policies.
Your attempt to distract for the issues of this campaign with your small ball politics is putrid bullcrap. But as your hero, Barrack Obama said himself in 2008, "If you don't have a record you can run on, you make a campaign out of small things, you play small ball".The voters won't buy it, and it will be exposed in the debates ahead, and the advertising campaign ahead in the next 6 weeks, and you can take that to the bank, fool!
During the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the public debt did NOT rise.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, the gross public debt increased from $5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008, due to decreasing tax rates and two unpaid wars.
Keith is a person of rare intelligence. It's rare when he shows any.
Jimmy Carter's Presidency (4 yrs) in Jan, 1977 thru Dec, 1980 had a 43.3% increase in the National Debt.
Bill Clinton Presidency (8 years) in Jan, 1992 thru Dec, 2000 had a 35.6% increase in the National Debt.
George W. Bush Presidency (8 yrs) in Jan, 2001 thru Dec, 2008 had a 89.0% increase in the National Debt.
Barrack Obama Presidency (3 years and Incomplete) in Jan, 2009 thru Dec, 2011 has a 41.5% increase in the National Debt.
Of course, recessions that drop tax revenues, and extraordinary expenses such as Wars have much to do with the rate of rise of National Debt level, as does the willingness of the President and the Congress to follow prudent budget balancing approaches. Notably, Both Carter and Clinton took big "peace dividends" and made major cuts in Defense spending. Also, while under Clinton, no recession took place until the end of his Presidency, and that was the stock market collapse with the dot.com bust that held over for the first two years of the Bush Administration, that was then complicated by the blow to our Nation's financial, transportation, and consumer economy by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And then the resulting Defense Department build up and the deficit financing of two hot wars, and the overall war on terrorism. Both Bush and Obama Presidencies were also impacted by the financial recession of 2007-2009 caused by the housing market bust complicated by the extensive leverage by financial institutions and their failed attempts to have hedged the high risk of bundled bad mortgages with credit default swap derivatives.
Lets just say this is one of those rare occasions where I displayed the difference in my level of intelligence and yours, la povre! LOL!
With rates as low as they are now, it makes sense to curtail the deduction of real estate mortgage interest as a deduction. It could be capped or phased out over time and would be a real revenue raiser. But there is a rather large lobby that would oppose this.