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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Shocking Revelation- Romney Wants to Cut His Own Taxes and Screw the Poor and Middle Class

Shocking Revelation- Romney Wants to Cut His Own Taxes and Screw the Poor and Middle Class

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This should surprise no one:

Mitt Romney’s plan to overhaul the tax code would produce cuts for the richest 5 percent of Americans — and bigger bills for everybody else, according to an independent analysis set for release Wednesday.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Brookings Institution and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, who seem to bend over backward to be fair to the Republican presidential candidate. To cover the cost of his plan — which would reduce tax rates by 20 percent, repeal the estate tax and eliminate taxes on investment income for middle-class taxpayers — the researchers assume that Romney would go after breaks for the richest taxpayers first.

They even look at what would happen if Republicans’ dreams for tax reform came true and the proposal generated significant revenue through economic growth.

None of it helped Romney. His rate-cutting plan for individuals would reduce tax collections by about $360 billion in 2015, the study says. To avoid increasing deficits — as Romney has pledged — the plan would have to generate an equivalent amount of revenue by slashing tax breaks for mortgage interest, employer-provided health care, education, medical expenses, state and local taxes, and child care — all breaks that benefit the middle class.

“It is not mathematically possible to design a revenue-neutral plan that preserves current incentives for savings and investment and that does not result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers,” the study concludes.

Even if tax breaks “are eliminated in a way designed to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible, there would still be a shift in the tax burden of roughly $86 billion [a year] from those making over $200,000 to those making less” than that.

What would that mean for the average tax bill? Millionaires would get an $87,000 tax cut, the study says. But for 95 percent of the population, taxes would go up by about 1.2 percent, an average of $500 a year.

In other words, he basically wants to do as President of the United States the same as he did while President and CEO of Bain- screw the poor and the middle class out of their retirement and financial security while increasing his already obscene riches. You can read the Brookings study here.

(via)

In an related note, can one of you do a high quality photoshop of Romney in a tophat, monocle, and a cigarette extender.

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  2. 2.

    cathyx

    One can never have enough money. Do Mormons think they can take it with them when they die?

  3. 3.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    Romney’s chief financial officer was listed as a financial outsourcing consultant as recently as two weeks ago on LinkedIn.

    The Mitt Romney campaign’s chief financial officer described himself as a “financial outsourcing consultant” on the professional networking website LinkedIn until at least July 17, according to a cached version of his profile page, but has since changed the description to “political/finance professional.” […]

    h/t Bob Cesca’s blog

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This asshole…and his entire fucking family, to include the grandkids…need to be stripped of every last fucking dime they have, then tossed into the streets of Chicago in winter to fend for themselves.

    Perhaps such an experience will create the slightest hint of empathy or human compassion in them.

    Perhaps.

  9. 9.

    redshirt

    If we follow “Trickle Down” economics to its logical conclusion, one American should be given ALL the money, and it should trickle on down to the rest us from there.

    Why not Mitt? He’s got good hair.

  10. 10.

    shortstop

    I would like to 1) take all the members of the 95% who would have their taxes raised under Romney, but strenuously deny this while insisting that Obama has already raised their taxes and will do so even more next term, 2) put them in a group, and 3) bang their silly heads together until they scream for mercy.

    And I’m done with the coffee for today.

  11. 11.

    gogol's wife

    @BGinCHI:

    Whenever this comes up, I just think that there’s no way Romney has one millionth of the warmth and humanity that Jim Backus has, even when he’s Thurston Howell. You love Thurston Howell despite everything. I mean, look at that face!

  13. 13.

    japa21

    @Maude:

    Poor Romney, he’s not going to know what hit him when Obama is done with him.

    And I don’t think the Obama team has really even started yet. They are still in the warm up stages. If Romney is whining now, imagine what he is going to be like come mid-October. Probably curled up on the floor in a fetal position yelling “No mas” hoping to get some latino votes.

  14. 14.

    Cassidy

    @shortstop: I’m thinking relocate them to Texas, and swap out all the people who want to stay Union on a one for one house thing. Leave the border open long enough for the crazies to migrate and then fence in Jesusland.

  18. 18.

    brent

    @gogol’s wife: Couldn’t agree with you more. I would much rather hang out for years with Thurston Howell II, even on that ridiculous island, than spend 30 minutes in the company of Mitt. (Not to mention hanging out with Jim Backus who was actually an incredibly cool guy.)

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    It blows my mind that some long complicated study was needed to prove this.

    Mitt claims that (a) he’s giving a top-weighted tax cut and (b) he won’t increase the deficit and (c) he won’t drastically slash spending. (c) is probably a lie given his support for the Ryan budget, but let’s work with it. (b) and (c) together imply that the federal government’s revenue will be about the same under MittPlan as it is now. Thus, given (a), taxes must go up on all the rest of us.

  21. 21.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @Cassidy: If I could find a way to pay off a few bills, I’m beginning to think it’s about time I found a way out of Texas.

  22. 22.

    Calouste

    who seem to bend over backward to be fair to the Republican presidential candidate.

    I wonder how long that sentence stays up at the WaPo.

  26. 26.

    NonyNony

    @redshirt: Check out the rest of the site – just go to the “Almost News” link and read the headlines – it’s a satire site.

    If it weren’t for the fact that no news about Anonymous hacking the IRS had appeared anywhere else today (and trust me – the sites I read it would have been THE NUMBER ONE STORY if Anonymous had gotten past IRS security today), I might have been taken in until I got to the bits about the huge deductions for toupees and spray-on tans.

  27. 27.

    Valdivia

    Also, too, Political Wire tells me the RomneyTron is about to institute their tire swing strategy. Any bets about how they will implement it and what kind of bbq the Village will be treated to?

  28. 28.

    Zach

    This study includes the Bush-era tax cuts in the “current policy baseline” but not the Making Work Pay cut (now the payroll tax cut) despite the fact that both expire at the same time and both were promised as permanent changes in policy but passed as temporary legislation. Romney’s proposed policies, even without being paid for, would be a tax hike on most if you include Making Work Pay in the baseline.

    And, of course, it gets much, much worse if you include the value of the Medicaid expansion and healthcare subsidies as income that Romney will take away by repealing Obamacare, which is essentially what they are.

  29. 29.

    The Dangerman

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    …need to be stripped of every last fucking dime they have, then tossed into the streets of Chicago in winter to fend for themselves.

    Now THAT would be reality TV I’d watch.

  30. 30.

    gbear

    I’ve been waiting for him to show up at a fundraiser wearing an ascot. The way he dresses now just begs for it.

  31. 31.

    Haydnseek

    Even so, millions of red state voters will fuck themselves over by voting for Rmoney because, you know, the gays, and he’s a secret muslim, and FREEEDOM! They’ll do it with a “that’ll show em!” smirk on their faces, knowing that they really put it to the libruls that hate this country. All the while it gets hotter, and drier, and their crops shrivel in the fields, because climate change is a hoax perpetrated by those misguided scientists that haven’t accepted Jeebus.

  32. 32.

    LanceThruster

    Except for the monocle, don’t let him look like FDR. It’s too bad science education is so poor in this nation as he shoud be depicted as parasite, unconcerned about killing off of its host (like a puppy or kitten that dies of anemia as it is being eaten alive by fleas).

    Even vultures serve an understandable and worthwhile ecological function but the Romney mentality is, to my mind, more akin to a lingering cancer.

  33. 33.

    shortstop

    @gbear: The third baseman cracked me up the other day when he said he wonders if Romney’s Hispanic houseman resents having to break in all Romney’s campaign-trail jeans for him.

  34. 34.

    RedKitten

    Speaking of screwing, the right wingers continue to double down on the cray-cray. Now, with enhanced “belittling two of America’s biggest tragedies” action!

    Criticizing President Barack Obama’s health care reform law on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) likened the requirement that private insurance plans provide contraception coverage to two of the most devastating attacks on American soil.

    “I know in your mind, you can think of the times America was attacked,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “One is Dec. 7, that’s Pearl Harbor Day. The other is Sept. 11, and that’s the day the terrorists attacked. I want you to remember Aug. 1, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”

  39. 39.

    shortstop

    @gbear: Okay, that’s hilarious. And Ann actually looks more confused than Mitt by this complicated mechanism.

  40. 40.

    sherparick

    By the way for most of hte VSPs in MSM this is a feature, not a defect. Biggest change in the last 40 years, particularly the last 25 is how stinking rich the elite media types have become through the mechanism of cable TV talking head shows and honorarium for speeches.

  41. 41.

    gbear

    @RedKitten: Wow. Did the press throw their shoes at him?

    (rhetorical question. I’ll guess that they blinked twice and then moved on)

  42. 42.

    jl

    @sherparick:

    And FDR could buy a whole fricken resort and spa complex, because he opened it up to crippled poors. And if he had a dressage horse, he coulda watched the poor thing dance, because he was honest and people knew whose side he was on.

    Mitt thinks he can spew crud and dogwhisble reactionary and racist BS that the majority of the US (including I believe majority of whites) want no part of, but if he insults his wife’s poor dancing horse and it will make the stench go away.

    Double fail for Mitt.

    The GOP has been running BS cons for so long, and have dived into symbolic la la land for so long, they have gone mad, stark raving mad. And it shows.

  44. 44.

    jl

    @Valdivia: yeah, I looked that up. Too blatant. Anything you have to announce like that will not make for good tireswing.

    I imagine it will turn into a bad summer camp experience with the Romney camp counselors hectoring the press for not enjoying their grudging graciousness and stingy generosity more.

  47. 47.

    Southern Beale

    If you’re going to repeal the tax on investment income for middle-class taxpayers AND repeal the mortgage interest deduction then wouldn’t it be advantageous for certain income brackets to sell off stocks and similar investments and pay off their homes with it? I mean, you can do that with an IRA account, right? You can hold real estate in an IRA or rollover account, can’t you? If I’m right, banks will lose out on a bunch of money under such a scenario.

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