Is Mitt Romney's tax plan the key to avoiding the fiscal cliff?

Democrats say Romney's proposal to raise revenue by slashing deductions for the rich could reduce deficits — without the tax-rate hikes that Republicans despise

Mitt Romney
(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

As a showdown brews in Washington over how to avoid the fiscal cliff, "Democrats are latching on to an idea floated by Mitt Romney" to break the impasse, says Jonathan Weisman at The New York Times. The defeated Republican presidential nominee campaigned on a plan to use a cap on income tax deductions for the wealthy to help offset an across-the-board tax-rate cut. President Obama dismissed the idea as "sketchy," saying it wouldn't come close to paying for Romney's proposal. Democrats in Congress, however, say it just might be the key to crafting a balanced debt-reduction deal that gets more revenue from the super wealthy without hiking tax rates, which Republican House Speaker John Boehner has called "unacceptable." Did Romney show Democrats the way to reach a deal with the GOP?

This might be the perfect compromise: Capping deductions for the rich could be the solution, says Scott Galupo at The American Conservative. We're talking about a huge pot of money here. Adopting Romney's deduction limits — without his plan to cut an additional $3.6 trillion in taxes —"would give Obama the revenue he wants, and Republicans could at least claim not to have raised tax rates." That's "a deal that both sides could live with."

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