On August 12 2012 03:44 Savio wrote: Romney dissassembles Obama's budget in front of the POTUS himself:
"Hiding spending does not reduce spending" lol
That's dated, not about the budget, its about a draft of the Health Care Bill which has been scored by the CBO and does reduce the deficit in the legislation that passed. So... its just not relevant since its about a bill never passed and everything he's saying about it is incorrect if you are talking about the bill that actually passed.
Good try buddy, but that has nothing to do with any budgets or anything that ever happened.
Edit: clarity of phrasing
I think the version of the ACA that passed still has some of those elements in it. Most notably a fair chunk of the bill is paid for by paying hospitals and doctors less ... which isn't expected to actually happen so it will end up costing more than the CBO projects.
That's the doc fix, and it's an argument that has been debunked many times.
The latest doc fix passed earlier this year. It'll pass again next year, and the year after that and so on. Each time adding a cost that the CBO wasn't allowed to include in its analysis.
No one is suddenly going to cut payments to hospitals and doctors by 27%. The fact that it was included in the CBO scoring is a great example of unrealistic accounting.
On August 12 2012 03:51 aksfjh wrote: I'm done talking to somebody that continues to insist an organization as upright and fair as the Tax Policy Center is a biased organization. You have been fed so much bullshit by your self segregated GOP media conglomerates that it's all you can spew. If it doesn't fit your narrative, it's a liberal source that's out to get you.
They made themselves look biased. They take Romney's plan (20% across the board tax cut for everyone) and say that because he claims that it will be revenue neutral and they don't think it will be revenue neutral they then add in to his plan a tax increase on the middle class. They don't just stop at "We conlude that it is unlikely to be revenue neutral" They say, "Romney is going to raise the tax burden on the middle class" despite his plan to cut taxes for them 20%.
Their analysis very well may be correct, but they went farther than a group who didn't wanna make a political statement would go. They added in their assumption that middle class taxes would go up in order to be revenue neutral and then Obama conveniently has the catch phrase he needs, "Romney will raise taxes" rather than the less powerful, "Romney's plan may not be revenue neutral".
That is bias in my book.
You're pulling at straws here and are misinterpreting the definition of the word "bias". I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and just because I call Romney a giant doofus does not mean I'm biased towards the Democratic party - it means I have a problem with the candidate.
Same applies to this. The TPC did what they do - they analyzed Romney's tax plan and they came to a conclusion. Just because the conclusion sounds bad towards Romney does not mean they are in line with the Democratic party. It just means there's a problem with Romney's tax plan and they elaborated on it (aka doing their job).
That's dated, not about the budget, its about a draft of the Health Care Bill which has been scored by the CBO and does reduce the deficit in the legislation that passed. So... its just not relevant since its about a bill never passed and everything he's saying about it is incorrect if you are talking about the bill that actually passed.
Good try buddy, but that has nothing to do with any budgets or anything that ever happened.
Edit: clarity of phrasing
I think the version of the ACA that passed still has some of those elements in it. Most notably a fair chunk of the bill is paid for by paying hospitals and doctors less ... which isn't expected to actually happen so it will end up costing more than the CBO projects.
That's the doc fix, and it's an argument that has been debunked many times.
You've been wrong about everything concerning the cost of Obamacare and fail to believe how the CBO projects it to reduce the deficit. If Obamacare would increase the deficit why would repealing it also increase the deficit by $109 billion (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43471)?
Admit it, Obamacare reduces the deficit.
You are technically right in saying that repealing it would increase the deficit. That is because even though it adds roughly a trillion dollars of new spending, it also includes a bit more than a trillion dollars in either tax hikes or diverting money from Medicare spending.
So just because there is a tax hike big enough to support it is not enough reason to keep it. It still grossly expands entitlements and makes our long term problem (endlessly growing entitlements) worse.
ObamaCare creates two costly giveaways—an expansion of Medicaid and new subsidies for people purchasing private insurance. It "pays" for both new entitlements by hiking taxes and penalties, and by raiding funds previously designated for Medicare.
The half-trillion dollars in tax hikes and half-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare funding together total more than the cost of the new entitlements during the next 10 years, according to the CBO, and produce a small $109 billion surplus. Repealing ObamaCare would erase that tiny surplus.
On August 12 2012 03:51 aksfjh wrote: I'm done talking to somebody that continues to insist an organization as upright and fair as the Tax Policy Center is a biased organization. You have been fed so much bullshit by your self segregated GOP media conglomerates that it's all you can spew. If it doesn't fit your narrative, it's a liberal source that's out to get you.
They made themselves look biased. They take Romney's plan (20% across the board tax cut for everyone) and say that because he claims that it will be revenue neutral and they don't think it will be revenue neutral they then add in to his plan a tax increase on the middle class. They don't just stop at "We conlude that it is unlikely to be revenue neutral" They say, "Romney is going to raise the tax burden on the middle class" despite his plan to cut taxes for them 20%.
Their analysis very well may be correct, but they went farther than a group who didn't wanna make a political statement would go. They added in their assumption that middle class taxes would go up in order to be revenue neutral and then Obama conveniently has the catch phrase he needs, "Romney will raise taxes" rather than the less powerful, "Romney's plan may not be revenue neutral".
That is bias in my book.
You're pulling at straws here and are misinterpreting the definition of the word "bias". I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and just because I call Romney a giant doofus does not mean I'm biased towards the Democratic party - it means I have a problem with the candidate.
Same applies to this. The TPC did what they do - they analyzed Romney's tax plan and they came to a conclusion. Just because the conclusion sounds bad towards Romney does not mean they are in line with the Democratic party. It just means there's a problem with Romney's tax plan and they elaborated on it (aka doing their job).
The problem is that they did an analysis and the result was: "We don't think this will be revenue neutral". They then decide not to defer to the candidate to decide what he would do if it was not revenue neutral (maybe he'd rather add to the deficit or maybe he would alter the plan, who knows), They then make the incredible jump to decide FOR ROMNEY what he would actually do. And they say that is to increase the tax burden on the middle class.
And then they get criticized for that. That seems like a pretty good reason to be criticized.
On August 12 2012 03:51 aksfjh wrote: I'm done talking to somebody that continues to insist an organization as upright and fair as the Tax Policy Center is a biased organization. You have been fed so much bullshit by your self segregated GOP media conglomerates that it's all you can spew. If it doesn't fit your narrative, it's a liberal source that's out to get you.
They made themselves look biased. They take Romney's plan (20% across the board tax cut for everyone) and say that because he claims that it will be revenue neutral and they don't think it will be revenue neutral they then add in to his plan a tax increase on the middle class. They don't just stop at "We conlude that it is unlikely to be revenue neutral" They say, "Romney is going to raise the tax burden on the middle class" despite his plan to cut taxes for them 20%.
Their analysis very well may be correct, but they went farther than a group who didn't wanna make a political statement would go. They added in their assumption that middle class taxes would go up in order to be revenue neutral and then Obama conveniently has the catch phrase he needs, "Romney will raise taxes" rather than the less powerful, "Romney's plan may not be revenue neutral".
That is bias in my book.
You're pulling at straws here and are misinterpreting the definition of the word "bias". I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and just because I call Romney a giant doofus does not mean I'm biased towards the Democratic party - it means I have a problem with the candidate.
Same applies to this. The TPC did what they do - they analyzed Romney's tax plan and they came to a conclusion. Just because the conclusion sounds bad towards Romney does not mean they are in line with the Democratic party. It just means there's a problem with Romney's tax plan and they elaborated on it (aka doing their job).
I think there's some bias in it. I can't imagine that getting rid of the child tax credit would be on the table while municipal bond interest wouldn't be.
On August 12 2012 06:07 Savio wrote:our long term problem (endlessly growing entitlements)
But that is not our long-term problem.
Our long-term problem is reckless consumerism, environmental degradation, an impending crisis in the mode of production, increasingly tenuous global hegemony, rampant social inequality, a nascent police state, and a failed educational system.
The Tax Policy Center’s latest research report went viral last week, drawing attention in the presidential campaign and sparking a constructive discussion of the practical challenges of tax reform. Unfortunately, the response has also included some unwarranted inferences from one side and unwarranted vitriol from the other, distracting from the fundamental message of the study: tax reform is hard.
The new study applies those insights to Governor Romney’s tax proposal. To do so, the authors had to confront a fundamental challenge: Governor Romney has not offered a fully-specified plan. He has been explicit about the tax cuts he has in mind, including a one-fifth reduction in marginal tax rates from today’s level, which would drop the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and a cut in capital gains and dividend taxes for families with incomes below $200,000. He and his team have also said that reform should be revenue-neutral and not increase taxes on capital gains and dividends. But they have not provided any detail about what tax preferences they would cut to make up lost revenue.
As a political matter, such reticence is understandable. To sell yourself and your policy, it’s natural to emphasize the things that people like, such as tax cuts, while downplaying the specifics of who will bear the accompanying costs. Last February, President Obama did the same thing when he rolled out his business tax proposal. The president was very clear about lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, but he provided few examples of the tax breaks he would cut to pay for it. Such is politics.
the study then examined the most progressive way of reducing the other tax breaks that remain on the table—i.e. it rolls them back first for high-income people. But there aren’t enough of those preferences to offset the benefits that high-income households get from the rate reductions. As a result, a revenue-neutral reform within these constraints would cut taxes at the high-end while raising them in the middle and perhaps bottom.
What should we infer from this result? Like Howard Gleckman, I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.
So a lot less exciting and breathless than everyone in the debate has claimed it is.
On August 12 2012 06:07 Savio wrote:our long term problem (endlessly growing entitlements)
But that is not our long-term problem.
Our long-term problem is reckless consumerism, environmental degradation, an impending crisis in the mode of production, increasingly tenuous global hegemony, rampant social inequality, a nascent police state, and a failed educational system.
Wait, you like pax Americana? I never would have guessed that...
On August 12 2012 03:51 aksfjh wrote: I'm done talking to somebody that continues to insist an organization as upright and fair as the Tax Policy Center is a biased organization. You have been fed so much bullshit by your self segregated GOP media conglomerates that it's all you can spew. If it doesn't fit your narrative, it's a liberal source that's out to get you.
They made themselves look biased. They take Romney's plan (20% across the board tax cut for everyone) and say that because he claims that it will be revenue neutral and they don't think it will be revenue neutral they then add in to his plan a tax increase on the middle class. They don't just stop at "We conlude that it is unlikely to be revenue neutral" They say, "Romney is going to raise the tax burden on the middle class" despite his plan to cut taxes for them 20%.
Their analysis very well may be correct, but they went farther than a group who didn't wanna make a political statement would go. They added in their assumption that middle class taxes would go up in order to be revenue neutral and then Obama conveniently has the catch phrase he needs, "Romney will raise taxes" rather than the less powerful, "Romney's plan may not be revenue neutral".
That is bias in my book.
You're pulling at straws here and are misinterpreting the definition of the word "bias". I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, and just because I call Romney a giant doofus does not mean I'm biased towards the Democratic party - it means I have a problem with the candidate.
Same applies to this. The TPC did what they do - they analyzed Romney's tax plan and they came to a conclusion. Just because the conclusion sounds bad towards Romney does not mean they are in line with the Democratic party. It just means there's a problem with Romney's tax plan and they elaborated on it (aka doing their job).
The problem is that they did an analysis and the result was: "We don't think this will be revenue neutral". They then decide not to defer to the candidate to decide what he would do if it was not revenue neutral (maybe he'd rather add to the deficit or maybe he would alter the plan, who knows), They then make the incredible jump to decide FOR ROMNEY what he would actually do. And they say that is to increase the tax burden on the middle class.
And then they get criticized for that. That seems like a pretty good reason to be criticized.
They made the most logical assumption based on what was presented to them. Now you want them to go beyond that and dial up conversation with Romney himself? I would consider THAT biased in an attempt to make Romney look better than he should. It's Romney's responsibility to address all of that the moment he drafts such a plan. And now that the TPC has shed light on it, maybe he will (or maybe he won't because it's true and he doesn't want to incur the full force of middle class rage).
Once again they are just doing the same job they have been for years. Nothing more. It just so happens that the most likely scenario they concluded does not bode well for Romney's campaign. It's not that they're trying to prop up Obama or bring down Romney - they merely analyzed the data and came to a conclusion. Sucks, but it's Romney's fault for not laying out the details. You can't just promise a revenue neutral plan and think everything will be okay. You have a problem with the diction, and that's understandable, but you must also understand that it's not done out of spite or Democratic pandering.
On August 12 2012 06:12 Savio wrote: The problem is that they did an analysis and the result was: "We don't think this will be revenue neutral". They then decide not to defer to the candidate to decide what he would do if it was not revenue neutral (maybe he'd rather add to the deficit or maybe he would alter the plan, who knows), They then make the incredible jump to decide FOR ROMNEY what he would actually do. And they say that is to increase the tax burden on the middle class.
And then they get criticized for that. That seems like a pretty good reason to be criticized.
They decided that they would eliminate every tax deduction possible, starting from the highest income, working down to the lowest income, only sparing tax expenditures that promote investment and savings, per Romney's campaign promise. They even assumed growth effects from broadening the base and cutting marginal tax rates, per Mankiw.
I don't think you quite understand just how far they bent over backwards to make Romney's plan progressive.
The bolded part is out of scope. If Romney wants a tax plan that increases the deficit or lowers his plan's marginal rate cuts, he should release a plan that increases the deficit or lowers the marginal rate cuts.
On August 12 2012 06:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote: I think there's some bias in it. I can't imagine that getting rid of the child tax credit would be on the table while municipal bond interest wouldn't be.
Romney has pledged not to touch parts of the tax code that promote savings and investment. Getting rid of the child tax credit is a logical extension of making his plan deficit neutral given his pledges.
If it sounds ridiculous, it's because his premises are ridiculous. His tax plan is...weird...without breaking one of three things he's promised
1: His tax plan's marginal rate reductions 2: Deficit neutrality 3: Savings and investment sanctity
It's not up the the TPC to prognosticate which promise Romney may break.
What should we infer from this result? Like Howard Gleckman, I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.
So a lot less exciting and breathless than everyone in the debate has claimed it is.
This was obvious the moment the TPC released the report.
While we're at mathematically impossible campagin promises, Obama should promise to cure cancer and give every American a pony by 2009. Political signaling at its finest.
The Tax Policy Center’s latest research report went viral last week, drawing attention in the presidential campaign and sparking a constructive discussion of the practical challenges of tax reform. Unfortunately, the response has also included some unwarranted inferences from one side and unwarranted vitriol from the other, distracting from the fundamental message of the study: tax reform is hard.
The new study applies those insights to Governor Romney’s tax proposal. To do so, the authors had to confront a fundamental challenge: Governor Romney has not offered a fully-specified plan. He has been explicit about the tax cuts he has in mind, including a one-fifth reduction in marginal tax rates from today’s level, which would drop the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and a cut in capital gains and dividend taxes for families with incomes below $200,000. He and his team have also said that reform should be revenue-neutral and not increase taxes on capital gains and dividends. But they have not provided any detail about what tax preferences they would cut to make up lost revenue.
As a political matter, such reticence is understandable. To sell yourself and your policy, it’s natural to emphasize the things that people like, such as tax cuts, while downplaying the specifics of who will bear the accompanying costs. Last February, President Obama did the same thing when he rolled out his business tax proposal. The president was very clear about lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, but he provided few examples of the tax breaks he would cut to pay for it. Such is politics.
the study then examined the most progressive way of reducing the other tax breaks that remain on the table—i.e. it rolls them back first for high-income people. But there aren’t enough of those preferences to offset the benefits that high-income households get from the rate reductions. As a result, a revenue-neutral reform within these constraints would cut taxes at the high-end while raising them in the middle and perhaps bottom.
What should we infer from this result? Like Howard Gleckman, I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.
So a lot less exciting and breathless than everyone in the debate has claimed it is.
So basically they said, "Romney hasn't given specifics on his plan so we assumed of his 2 promises (cut taxes and be revenue neutral) that he would break the tax cut promise and then we thought up a reasonable way he might do it, then we announced that his plan raises taxes on the middle class"
Basically, they made a poor decision that made them look like political hacks. It turned out well for Obama, hurt Romney, and hurt their own reputation.
On August 12 2012 06:29 Savio wrote: So basically they said, "Romney hasn't given specifics on his plan so we assumed of his 2 promises (cut taxes and be revenue neutral) that he would break the tax cut promise and then we thought up a reasonable way he might do it, then we announced that his plan raises taxes on the middle class"
They did not think up a reasonable way to do it. They took the most extreme way possible to maintain progressivity and the plan was still regressive. They even assumed growth effects per ROMNEY'S economics advisor.
Romney hasn't given specifics on which loopholes that he's close. Therefore, the TPC chose the loopholes that would make his plan the most progressive. Any other loophole combination, given his pledges, makes the analysis that much more regressive.
Why is this so hard to understand? If Romney wants the TPC to choose different assumptions, he just has to break pledges for deficit neutrality or tax preference for savings and investment.
With Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee, Mitt Romney’s central argument pushing back against critics of the House budget chief’s Medicare plan is that President Obama cut deep into Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. But Ryan’s plan includes the same cuts, which don’t target beneficiaries.
“Unlike the current president, who has cut Medicare funding by $700 billion, we will preserve and protect Medicare and Social Security,” Romney said Saturday while introducing Ryan.
The trouble with this argument — made frequently by Republicans, including Ryan himself — is that Republicans have voted overwhelmingly for Ryan’s own budget which sustains the Medicare cuts in “Obamacare.” Conservatives argue that Ryan’s plan, unlike the Affordable Care Act, doesn’t use the Medicare savings to fund additional spending.
Talking points circulated by the Romney campaign Saturday similarly instruct surrogates to make the “Obama cut Medicare” argument to blunt voters’ fears over Ryan’s Medicare plan.
“No. President Obama is the one who should be worried, because he has cut $700 BILLION from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, and put in place a panel of Washington bureaucrats to make decisions about what kind of care seniors will receive under Medicare,” the memo reads. “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have a bipartisan plan to strengthen Medicare by giving future seniors the choice between traditional Medicare and a variety of private plans.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found last month that the Medicare provisions in the health care law would save $700 billion over a decade and extend the life of Medicare.
The cuts don’t target beneficiaries — they come largely in the form of reduced payments to hospitals, discounts on Medicaid prescription drugs, and pay cuts to private insurers under Medicare Advantage. The hospital and drug industries endorsed the law despite the cuts.
The Ryan plan, by contrast, would transform Medicare into a structure that rolls back the coverage guarantee for the elderly. In 10 years, the program would be replaced with a subsidy that beneficiaries can use to purchase insurance from a menu of private plans and a government option. CBO projects that in some cases, the subsidy won’t be sufficient to cover seniors’ medical expenses.
On August 12 2012 06:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote: I think there's some bias in it. I can't imagine that getting rid of the child tax credit would be on the table while municipal bond interest wouldn't be.
Romney has pledged not to touch parts of the tax code that promote savings and investment. Getting rid of the child tax credit is a logical extension of making his plan deficit neutral given his pledges.
If it sounds ridiculous, it's because his premises are ridiculous. His tax plan is literally unworkable without breaking one of three things he's promised
1: His tax plan's marginal rate reductions 2: Deficit neutrality 3: Savings and investment sanctity
Tax exempt municipal bonds aren't really a boon to savings and investment - its a subsidy to the municipalities.
Besides, I don't think it is supposed to be a 100% detailed and set in stone plan anymore than any plan Obama has / is running on is supposed to be.
On August 12 2012 06:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Tax exempt municipal bonds aren't really a boon to savings and investment - its a subsidy to the municipalities.
Yes, because "boons to savings and investment" are mutually exclusive with subsidies to municipalities. If it's tax exempt, you earn a higher effective rate of return on municipal bonds than you otherwise would if it were taxed at the normal capital gains rate. That's preferential tax treatment of savings and investment. Whether or not it's subsidizing anybody is completely irrelevant.
Do you really believe what you're saying?
On August 12 2012 06:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Besides, I don't think it is supposed to be a 100% detailed and set in stone plan anymore than any plan Obama has / is running on is supposed to be.
The TPC runs analysis on almost every tax plan made by Congress or presidential candidates. Looking up any one of Obama's multiple tax plan revisions simply isn't that difficult.
The thing I hate about all this tax talk is that we don't get many specific details to work with since politicians don't wanna piss people off, and we're just left guessing, which brings up debates like these. The process of it all disgusts me.
The Tax Policy Center’s latest research report went viral last week, drawing attention in the presidential campaign and sparking a constructive discussion of the practical challenges of tax reform. Unfortunately, the response has also included some unwarranted inferences from one side and unwarranted vitriol from the other, distracting from the fundamental message of the study: tax reform is hard.
The new study applies those insights to Governor Romney’s tax proposal. To do so, the authors had to confront a fundamental challenge: Governor Romney has not offered a fully-specified plan. He has been explicit about the tax cuts he has in mind, including a one-fifth reduction in marginal tax rates from today’s level, which would drop the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and a cut in capital gains and dividend taxes for families with incomes below $200,000. He and his team have also said that reform should be revenue-neutral and not increase taxes on capital gains and dividends. But they have not provided any detail about what tax preferences they would cut to make up lost revenue.
As a political matter, such reticence is understandable. To sell yourself and your policy, it’s natural to emphasize the things that people like, such as tax cuts, while downplaying the specifics of who will bear the accompanying costs. Last February, President Obama did the same thing when he rolled out his business tax proposal. The president was very clear about lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, but he provided few examples of the tax breaks he would cut to pay for it. Such is politics.
the study then examined the most progressive way of reducing the other tax breaks that remain on the table—i.e. it rolls them back first for high-income people. But there aren’t enough of those preferences to offset the benefits that high-income households get from the rate reductions. As a result, a revenue-neutral reform within these constraints would cut taxes at the high-end while raising them in the middle and perhaps bottom.
What should we infer from this result? Like Howard Gleckman, I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.
So a lot less exciting and breathless than everyone in the debate has claimed it is.
So basically they said, "Romney hasn't given specifics on his plan so we assumed of his 2 promises (cut taxes and be revenue neutral) that he would break the tax cut promise and then we thought up a reasonable way he might do it, then we announced that his plan raises taxes on the middle class"
Basically, they made a poor decision that made them look like political hacks. It turned out well for Obama, hurt Romney, and hurt their own reputation.
I am going to agree with you that they could have been a little more Romney-friendly, but given the circumstances I feel they were justified in their actions.
On August 12 2012 06:07 Savio wrote:our long term problem (endlessly growing entitlements)
But that is not our long-term problem.
Our long-term problem is reckless consumerism, environmental degradation, an impending crisis in the mode of production, increasingly tenuous global hegemony, rampant social inequality, a nascent police state, and a failed educational system.
Wait, you like pax Americana? I never would have guessed that...
I'm just pointing out that, because we depend on it for our entire economic order, its increasing tenuousness is a problem for our country.
This is separate from the issue of whether I like it or not, on which point my feelings by now should be abundantly clear
edit: (which is to say, I don't like it, AND I think it's coming into crisis anyway. Same with capitalism.)
On August 12 2012 06:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote: I think there's some bias in it. I can't imagine that getting rid of the child tax credit would be on the table while municipal bond interest wouldn't be.
Romney has pledged not to touch parts of the tax code that promote savings and investment. Getting rid of the child tax credit is a logical extension of making his plan deficit neutral given his pledges.
If it sounds ridiculous, it's because his premises are ridiculous. His tax plan is literally unworkable without breaking one of three things he's promised
1: His tax plan's marginal rate reductions 2: Deficit neutrality 3: Savings and investment sanctity
Tax exempt municipal bonds aren't really a boon to savings and investment - its a subsidy to the municipalities.
Besides, I don't think it is supposed to be a 100% detailed and set in stone plan anymore than any plan Obama has / is running on is supposed to be.
A key thing to take away from this is that Romney has promised himself into a corner on tax policy. Obama has kept his promises quite vague, with the major selling point that taxes would only go up on the top bracket. He doesn't promise so much that it is impossible on paper.
The Tax Policy Center’s latest research report went viral last week, drawing attention in the presidential campaign and sparking a constructive discussion of the practical challenges of tax reform. Unfortunately, the response has also included some unwarranted inferences from one side and unwarranted vitriol from the other, distracting from the fundamental message of the study: tax reform is hard.
The new study applies those insights to Governor Romney’s tax proposal. To do so, the authors had to confront a fundamental challenge: Governor Romney has not offered a fully-specified plan. He has been explicit about the tax cuts he has in mind, including a one-fifth reduction in marginal tax rates from today’s level, which would drop the top rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and a cut in capital gains and dividend taxes for families with incomes below $200,000. He and his team have also said that reform should be revenue-neutral and not increase taxes on capital gains and dividends. But they have not provided any detail about what tax preferences they would cut to make up lost revenue.
As a political matter, such reticence is understandable. To sell yourself and your policy, it’s natural to emphasize the things that people like, such as tax cuts, while downplaying the specifics of who will bear the accompanying costs. Last February, President Obama did the same thing when he rolled out his business tax proposal. The president was very clear about lowering the corporate rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, but he provided few examples of the tax breaks he would cut to pay for it. Such is politics.
the study then examined the most progressive way of reducing the other tax breaks that remain on the table—i.e. it rolls them back first for high-income people. But there aren’t enough of those preferences to offset the benefits that high-income households get from the rate reductions. As a result, a revenue-neutral reform within these constraints would cut taxes at the high-end while raising them in the middle and perhaps bottom.
What should we infer from this result? Like Howard Gleckman, I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.
So a lot less exciting and breathless than everyone in the debate has claimed it is.
So basically they said, "Romney hasn't given specifics on his plan so we assumed of his 2 promises (cut taxes and be revenue neutral) that he would break the tax cut promise and then we thought up a reasonable way he might do it, then we announced that his plan raises taxes on the middle class"
Basically, they made a poor decision that made them look like political hacks. It turned out well for Obama, hurt Romney, and hurt their own reputation.
I am going to agree with you that they could have been a little more Romney-friendly, but given the circumstances I feel they were justified in their actions.
There was no way to be more Romney friendly. Even if budget neutrality wasn't a goal, it still would have changed tax policy to be more regressive.
EPT
