Comments for Washington Post News Article Praises Romney for Lying About His Tax Plan at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://www.cepr.net Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:06:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19449 Vote for me, I'm for everything you want...until I'm elected. Is there any side of any issue that Romney has not been for at one time or another? - FoonTheElder Tue, 09 Oct 2012 07:19:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19338 No way will there ever be a cap on charitable contributions. The lobby for keeping that is probably by far the strongest in the country. That leaves (1) home mortgage, and it's already capped at $1,000,000; nothing much to do there; (2) state and local income. Assume the state income tax on Warren Buffet's alleged $39 million in taxable income is 5%: that's $1.95 million at most recovered from capping that deduction, and that's the most we'll get. Dropping the top marginal rate from 35% to 28% will lose $2.73. Eliminating politically-feasible deductions on the very wealthy is unlikely to make up for the lost revenue from lowering the rates. It's probably wise to assume the people who studied the question had some idea what they were talking about. Haven't seen any push-back from Romney-friendly experts either. - urban legend Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:26:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19328 Actually it IS possible "to make up the lost revenue from lower tax rates on the wealthy simply by taking away tax breaks for the wealthy." You simply cap their itemized deductions at the maximum taxable amount for social security, which is $110,100 now. That essentially wipes out the state, local tax and home mortgage and charitable deductions for those with higher incomes. For Mitt Romney, lowering his rate by 20% on $4 million in interest would save him $ 280,000 assuming a 35% rate. (Assumes his dividend and capital gain rates are unchanged) If you capped his itemized deductions, Mitt Romney would have an additional $ 4.57 million of taxable income which would thefore exceed his savings from a lower tax rate. http://www.mittromney.com/disclosure/mitt/tax-return/2011/wmr-adr-return AS far as Warren Buffet goes, in 2010 his $39 million of taxable income was far less than his $62 million of gross income. So capping his itemized deductions would also increase his tax substantially. And capping the amount of capital gains and dividends to which lower rates apply would also tilt the tax system away from those with high incomes. - AndrewDover Fri, 05 Oct 2012 08:45:09 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19327 well, we have two candidates with little to choose from if you are a progressive. romney, the habitual liar about everything he talks about. you can be very sure that if he is elected the long-term damage inflicted by him will be staggering. the environment will suffer as global warming will be greatly helped along with romney's energy policies. if you are poor or middle class you will be much worse off 4 years from now. your children & grandchildren will suffer in the decades ahead because of the tea party positions romney will adapt. we'll be extremely lucky if this character doesn't start ww3. obama? there have been many takes on his poor showing in the debate. so i'll throw in my 2 cents worth. it looks like obama is tired of the presidency. he knows he is not helping the people in this country that need help, that his main objective is compromising with the opposition, & not saying a word that wallstreet disagrees with. his advisers & cabinet are all wallstreet wealthy flunkies. so my take is, deep down in his soul he is ashamed of what he has become. however, this will have no bearing on his policies should he be reelected, the country will produce more minimum wage, dead end jobs. the stock market will grow. bernanke & his successor will continue qe & other policies that move money from the poor & middle class to the super wealthy. social security & medicare will take a hit. the media will continue to be as insipid as jim lehrer was tues. night. a dark future for all but the well-to-do. have a nice weekend. - mel in oregon Fri, 05 Oct 2012 08:31:55 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19323 Depressing how Romney's debate victory focuses exclusively on his demeanor vs. Obama and not the truth of his statements vs. the truth of Obama's. If we aren't going to focus on the truth, why are we having a debate? - rz0 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:13:54 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19317 http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/the-shifting-burden-under-tax-reforms/2012/10/04/fa09f31c-0e7c-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_graphic.html - anonymousToday Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:39:28 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19316 The graph that goes with the article has the bonus of minimizing the millionaires tax cuts relative to loophole closing tax increases. For the group with incomes greater than $1M the cuts are twice the size of the increases. But the graphic makes it look like there is about 20 percent more tax cuts than loophole closings for the richest. The Post's team used a broken bar to represent the $1M tax cuts so that they could keep the same scale and have any differences show at the lower incomes while using a bar chart. The article is surrounded by Lori Montgomery and Glenn Kessler, so it all sort of hangs together in a "truthy" way. - anonymousToday Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:03:08 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-news-article-praises-romney-for-lying-about-his-tax-plan#comment-19309 Mitt Romney repeatedly said he'd lower taxes for the middle class but not lower taxes for the wealthy. Romney also states his plan will be revenue neutral. I guess some small increase in taxes because of growth could be used to reduce taxes on the middle class but that is not the traditional trade-off for revenue neutrality. Romney and Obama both look to end the payroll tax cut which will be a 2% tax increase for the vast majority of middle class families. The expiration of the payroll tax cut will likely be more than any growth effect on tax revenues. - Robert Salzberg Fri, 05 Oct 2012 01:32:09 +0100