Romney’s tax plan: Pie in the sky?

What two words best describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises? said Ezra Klein in Bloomberg.com. Try “mathematically impossible.” Don’t take my word for it: That’s the conclusion of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which last week released its detailed analysis of Romney’s tax and budget proposals. Romney has pledged to lower all marginal tax rates by a whopping 20 percent—without adding to the deficit. Those tax cuts will reduce tax revenue by $360 billion per year, which Romney says he will make up by eliminating unspecified deductions and loopholes from the tax code. The problem? “The tax cuts Romney is offering to the rich are simply larger than the size of the deductions and loopholes that exist for the rich.” To pay for his tax cuts, Romney would have to eliminate tax breaks benefiting the middle class, such as the mortgage-income deduction and the child tax credit. In other words, “it’s ‘mathematically impossible’ for Romney’s plan to produce anything but a tax increase on the middle class.”

That’s simply not true, said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com.Romney put a broad, conceptual plan on the table, and the Tax Policy Center makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about how it would work. The center also fails to take into account the economic growth—and tax revenue—that would come from slashing both the personal and the corporate tax burden. Is it any surprise that a “left-wing think tank” is trying to make Romney look bad? No, especially since the study’s co-author is Adam Looney, said Daniel Halper in WeeklyStandard.com.He’s a “close ally” of Obama who sat on his council of economic advisers. This is hardly an “independent, nonpartisan” analysis.

Numbers aren’t biased, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com,and until recently, the Romney campaign called the Tax Policy Center “objective.” Its study actually credits Romney with an “implausibly optimistic” set of assumptions on tax reform, using his own advisers’ forecast for economic growth. Even under that “cheerful scenario,” the cruel math dictates either higher taxes for the middle class or soaring deficits. Sadly, Obama’s proposals to tackle the deficit are “almost as sketchy,” said Bloomberg.com in an editorial. His entire plan can be summed up as “soak the rich.” The most important questions facing this country are: “What size government do we want? How will we pay for it?” Instead of clear choices, the two candidates are giving voters “pie-in-the-sky promises” and “vague nostrums.”

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