Florida Paper Calls On Romney To Provide Specifics Of Tax Plan

[ProSense]

Florida Paper Calls On Romney To Provide Specifics Of Tax Plan

The editorial board of the Tampa Bay Times called on Mitt Romney Monday to release specifics of his tax plan if he is going to deny the findings of a report from the Tax Policy Center. The editorial lays out the findings of the study, which showed that Romney’s tax plan cuts taxes on the wealthy and raises them on 95 percent of Americans. “The study cuts through the magical thinking surrounding the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s promise to lower taxes without adding to the budget deficit,” the editors write. “If he wants to argue with the numbers, rather than shooting at the messenger, he will have to demonstrate how the numbers are wrong and fill in the blanks in his plan.”

Too often candidates get away with fanciful claims that they can cut taxes without reducing defense spending or worsening the deficit. Romney’s attempt was properly called out by a group of number-crunchers. If he has a dispute with the results, he needs to provide specifics on just how he will provide massive tax relief to those at the top without adding to the tax burdens of average people.

The Romney campaign fired back at the report last week, claiming that the Tax Policy Center is biased, but the editors aren’t buying that argument.

The Romney camp attacked the messenger as politically biased since one of the three authors had worked in the Obama White House. But previously the Romney campaign had promoted the center’s work as providing an “objective, third-party analysis,” and the center is directed by a former economic adviser to Republican President George W. Bush.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/florida-paper-calls-on-romney-to-provide-specifics

A Times Editorial

Romney's tax plan crunches middle class

Lower taxes on the rich and higher taxes on the middle class is how a nonpartisan analysis summed up Mitt Romney's tax plan. The study cuts through the magical thinking surrounding the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's promise to lower taxes without adding to the budget deficit. To fulfill Romney's promise would require the elimination of a host of tax credits and deductions that middle-income Americans rely upon but that Romney won't specify. If he wants to argue with the numbers, rather than shooting at the messenger, he will have to demonstrate how the numbers are wrong and fill in the blanks in his plan.

- more -

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1244067.ece

Nine takeaways on Romney’s tax plan: 3)...huge problem for the Romney campaign.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021066609

New Obama ad: 'Romney's tax plan? He pays less. You pay more.'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021061091

How The Obama Campaign Is Spinning A Boring Report Into Campaign Gold
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021072639

FLASHBACK: Romney Economic Advisers Predicted Bush Tax Cuts Would Lead To Huge Job Growth (updated)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021071809

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[grantcart]

2. k and r

[Berlum]

3. Willard not only hides his Republican tax dodgers, he is trying to hide his Tax Screwery of...

"you people" = honest, hard-working, responsible American citizens.

Beware of Republican occultism.

[DallasNE]

4. It Is Even Worse Than That

Romney is projecting that his economic plan, including unspecified deregulation, will unleash the economy and create 12 million new jobs.

Many people think just the opposite will happen because it does nothing to increase aggregate demand and only by increasing that can the economy expand. Romney's plan would surely throw the country into a steep recession because it would actually decrease aggregate demand and with unemployment already over 8% it would be devastating.