"Yeah, I got nothing!" |
For several weeks, we’ve been asking Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to explain how he can cut taxes, as promised, without adding to the nation’s debt, as also promised. Now he’s effectively let the cat out of the bag: He can’t.
Mr. Romney’s tax plan calls for reducing income tax rates by 20 percent. The top bracket would go from 35 percent to 28 percent. He has said that he can do this in a revenue-neutral way by eliminating loopholes. While the rich might pay more, he has said, the middle class would pay less.
There are a couple of pitfalls here. The first is that while closing loopholes sounds good — Make those oil companies pay! — the costliest ones are cherished by most Americans. These are tax provisions that promote home ownership, charitable giving, and employer-provided health care and that allow taxpayers to deduct their state and local income taxes. Limiting or eliminating these popular “loopholes” would be extremely difficult.
The second obstacle, as shown by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, is that Mr. Romney’s plan is mathematically impossible, even if it were politically feasible. Take away every deduction from every wealthy household, the center calculated, and you still couldn’t make up the revenue the government would lose by reducing rates without raising taxes on middle-class households.
Not so, Mr. Romney protested recently, and cited an analysis by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, a Romney campaign adviser. Mr. Feldstein said the math could work — if you took away every deduction from every household earning $100,000 or more. (Even then, he couldn’t pay for the estate tax abolition that Mr. Romney also favors, but never mind.) Is that what Mr. Romney has in mind, we asked? If not, what is his plan?
On Friday, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos put the question to the candidate. “No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less,” Mr. Romney replied.
But then, the Harvard study shows, the math can’t work. His answer? “The biggest source of getting the country to a balanced budget is not by raising taxes or by cutting spending,” he said. “It’s by encouraging the growth of the economy.”
In other words, we are back to counting on magic — to “dynamic scoring,” the voodoo economics of the Reagan era, the wishful thinking of President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that helped turn a surplus into the deficit now weighing the nation’s economy. Cut taxes and hope the economy grows faster than predicted.
This is why Romney has been so resistant to describing exactly HOW he would do a better job at fixing this economy than President Obama has, because he simply can't do it!
His plan is almost exactly the same as George Bush's plan, which of course is the identified reason for our current financial difficulties. A plan by the way that voters would surely reject unilaterally, regardless of which political party they are affiliated with.
Fixing the economy is Mitt Romney's ONLY selling point, without that he has nothing.
So essentially, he has nothing!
President Obama is scheduled to appear on the Letterman Show on Tuesday night.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited!!
See if you can get conservatives to pull their heads out of the sand(or a more intimate dark spot)and try to understand the above. Not much chance among the Republicans I know. The only thing in their consciousness is BLACK MAN IN WHITE HOUSE AAAAHHHHGGGG!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou associate with people like that? aaahhhggg!
DeleteNot by choice. It's just so hard to avoid certain family members and co workers. Love em or hate em they are always there.
DeleteCome on, Gryphen, give the guy a break! After all, Romney wears magical underwear and Obama only has a lycra suit with a big "S" on under HIS clothes.
ReplyDelete"This is why Romney has been so resistant to describing exactly HOW he would do a better job at fixing this economy than President Obama has, because he simply can't do it!"
Well you can't really be surprised at this can you? This is a guy whose cult like religion believes all sorts of nonsense like this: Interplanetary travel to have polygamous sex with the Virgin Mary!
"Early Mormon prophets taught that Elohim and one of his goddess wives came to the earth as Adam and Eve to start the human race. Thousands of years later, Elohim in human form once again journeyed to earth from the star base Kolob, this time to have physical relations with the Virgin Mary in order to provide Jesus with a physical body.(4) Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde taught that after Jesus Christ grew to manhood, he took at least three wives– Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Through these wives the Mormon Jesus supposedly fathered a number of children before he was crucified. Mormon founder Joseph Smith is supposedly one of his descendants."(5)
http://realmormontruth.blogspot.com/2008/05/summary-of-mormon-teaching.html
Really, what's a little magical thinking that might sink the nation's economy, compared to this Elohim and Planet Kolob Shit?
So Adam had sex with Mary and made Jesus? Kind of ruins the 'Son of God" thing for them, huh? He's just another descendent, like the rest of us. Hmm..and that means whatever he taught cannot be as important as what his SON Joseph Smith had to offer. How can Christians support this? I know there is no religious test for POTUS, but somehow I'd hope the people running were capable of intelligent thought.
DeleteGot to put that picture below the fold - the man is a cardboard cutout and when he tries to smile - he just smirks - not only do I feel for the people of Pennsylvania - but for anyone who had to work for this sh_t - must have been a nightmare - I almost feel sorry for the wife & kids - but then again - they were well paid for the misery.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the people of Massachusetts?. That's the state he was CEO.. euh governor of.
DeleteAnyone else heard of the Big Dig in Massachusetts?
DeleteDUH - I have Pennsylvania on my mind with the current voter ID cases - of course massachesetts
DeleteAnd then you have morons telling them that a vote for Romney is a vote for GOD! Really? God supports war, hates women, the poor, the elderly, and immigrants? Interesting. .... but stupid.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I am seriously starting to believe that Mitt Romney doesn't really want to be president.
ReplyDeleteI'm all over that. I think by now he sees what a pain in the ass it would be he's having serious second thoughts. He is such a jajoff.
Deletewww.riverfronttimes.com/2011-05-05/news/get-motivated-peter-Lowe-investools-wealth-magazine/
ReplyDeleteGood article on this little scam outfit that Sarah is fronting for. They take advantage of the financially unsophisticated low-info people that are wowed by seeing "so many famous people" in person. The speakers speak a half hour or so, then there's a get-rich-quick scene seller for about an hour or so. They bilk these people out of a lot of money who are too embarrassed to complain. Not everyone that goes gets suckered, but a lot do. Sometimes after a couple of hours, people catch onto the purpose and leave. It's like a day-long infomercial. It's more like a celebrity endorsement but the speakers package their own little speechifying in-between the sales pitches. The difference between this and selling timeshares is with those you get the vacatiion for free if you can stand to thru the sales presentation. For "Get Motivated!" seminars, you get "Sarah" along with 10-20,000 other people, a few of whom will get hustled out of overpriced financial seminars and anything else that the crooks behind the shills can sell them.
Peter Lowe owns this outfit, which is tied into an online magazine "Wealth" and "Investools" which is boiler-plate investing BS. Lowe had another venture just like it that was called "Success" that went belly up, bilked customers out of millions, speakers didn't show, etc. as long as there's enough stupid people that can be talked out of their money, the show goes on. You'll find that none of the speakers really want their name associated with the sponsors if these things bc if their unseemly sales practices. Many don't so them after they find out what is really happening.
It's the equivalent of Sarah "hosting" a special promotion at a whorehouse. She agrees to appear and "greet" the customers and then they go into another room where they are offered all of these incredible one-time deals. In the case of the speaking engagements, basically 80% can see her a whole lot better on the big screen above the arena. Big shit.
By the end of the day. only a third of the people will be on-hand at the end for someone like Sarah. Those are the real suckers who get the hard sell. lol. It's a match made in heaven. Sarah gets paid for delivering dumbasses into the seats. A marriage made in heaven. BTW, Sarah gets a Che k on the front end, but this is definitely a step-down from giving corporate-sponsored speeches for companies willing to tie their products and services to a person's character to endorse them. This is called back-door selling. The marks don't even know what's happened until they have plunked down their credit card and committed to "training classes", etc.
Anonymous3:34 PM:
DeleteDid you put this info on the other page that Gryph put up with Palin talking about this?
I try so hard not to denigrate religions but I often fail so here I go again. When I first learned about Mormonism as a young person, I was struck by the name of the Angel Moroni. My first thought was that this was a huge hoax and a joke on the followers and the clue was MORON-i.
ReplyDeleteAnd he hangs out with people who solicited funds for the video that helped kill a fine US Ambassador and is endangering the lives of Americans in the Middle East. This is unreal...scroll down to the end of this post to see Romney posing with Pamela Geller, who, big shocker, promoted the need to fund that awful video on her blog Atlas Shrugged.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democraticunderground.com/10021357666
Why isn't our national media reporting this??? This man is running for President!
Which is why we're screwed because the dems cannot either.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats can tell you how they would fix the economy but if they are stymied by Republicans they will not be successful. Given that the Republicans have said over and over that they will block everything the President tries to do, even if it would benefit everyone, we are screwed.
DeleteNope. False equivalency. We are screwed because of George Bush, Dick Cheney and the other neocons and all the Republican who refuse to work with Pres Obama.
DeleteCongress has a near non-existent approval rating and it all has to do with the infantile tantrums of the Republicans.
Romney won't release his tax records, he just tells us what his effective rate is. He wants us to trust him.
ReplyDeleteRomney will fix the economy with magic math. He wants us to trust him.
Romney will be good for women in this country. How? Romney won't say. He wants us to trust him.
For my own job, I interview applicants and make hiring decisions. An applicant with Romney's arrogance doesn't even get a second interview.
The laughable thing is the Romney is supposed to understand "business". How could he possibly run a business with his loony ideas on hiring?
But, of course, Romney's sole claim to the job of president of the USA is that he is WHITE and the other guy isn't.
He still has the "I'm not Obama!" thing going for him.
ReplyDeleteThat such a weak plank to base a Presidential run upon, works on ANYone, is truly pathetic.
Romney is also in bed with Monsanto.
ReplyDeleteRomney's Agricultural Advisors are MONSANTO partners & lobbyists. Monsanto was HUGE client of Romney / Bain.
The relationship goes back to around 1977 when Monsanto was being sued and Romney 'etch-a-sketched' them.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/14/850321/romney-monsanto/
This too has to get more coverage as Monsanto is screwing around with our food, with seeds, etc.
Let them eat cake. Romney is so out of touch he thinks if you need help getting a job you should buy a new suit, get a new car, talk to your therapist and network at the hamptons.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to imagine this silver spoon has any idea how people really live.
Well, Mitt Romney thinks that a middle class family earns 200-250k a year.
DeleteSo let me see if I have this right...
ReplyDeleteEight years of Bush policies (which were in many ways a rehash of the worst of Reagan policies) created the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Unemployment skyrocketed, the stock exchange tanked, hundreds of companies went belly-up, hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes, millions of 401Ks became worthless, and the only people who made money were the bankers who started the whole mess and the very top 1% who now own most of the wealth in the country.
Four years later, Obama's policies have dug us slowly out of the chasm we were in, the stock market has recovered to the highest level in years, more than 4 million jobs have been created, the auto industry has been saved, mortgage lenders and banks have strict new rules that prevent them from destroying people's lives and US manufacturing has increased significantly.
And we're supposed to go back to the GOP ideas that flushed our economy down the toilet?
I think not.
Isn't it unbelievable that people still want these policies???? I just don't get it. People who I know as educated are for this party because somehow they think Republicans or more "fiscally responsible" which is a false meme. Crazy but true, one of my Republican friends is even gay??!!! I mean how can someone who is gay support this party?
DeleteThis post has been up for eight hours, and there are only twenty eight comments? Methinks that Mitt is too boring for this crowd.
ReplyDeletemeh. Mitt's campaign is as defunct as this blog. Sarah Palin and kin discredited, disgraced, and taking off their clothes on national tv. What is left?
DeleteHow can we expect Mitt Romney to "fix" the economy? He is part and parcel of what "broke" the economy. From his years at Bain to his being a member of the GOP, Mitt's as responsible for the economic mess President Obama found himself, and the country, in in January 2009.
ReplyDeleteVoters need to keep in mind just how Mitt Romney made his multi-millions. Not by building widgets in the US but by destroying companies that did build widget and whatnots in the US or businesses that sold them. He helped send manufacturing jobs abroad and he became enormously wealthy by destroying companies, jobs and lives. Not someone I want anywhere near Washington, D.C.
Obama/Biden 2012 (and a soundly Democratic Congress)
Beaglemom
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Very well put.
DeleteBeaglegrandma
Bain in bed with Monsanto.
ReplyDelete