From Mitt Romney's closed-door fundraiser yesterday, courtesy of NBC:
"I'm going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction," Romney said, adding that he would also likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes as well.
"By virtue of doing that, we'll get the same tax revenue, but we'll have lower rates," Romney explained.
Let's check Romney's arithmetic.
The home mortgage deduction was worth $22 billion to households making over $200,000 in 2009. Even if half of that was attributable to second houses -- and the actual figure is certainly less -- that gives you $11 billion. The deduction for state and local income taxes was worth $20 billion for those same households. So together you get a total of $31 billion.
The top 1 percent paid about 36 percent of individual income taxes in 2009, which were $915 billion. So they paid $329 billion in individual income taxes.
Even if we assume that all $31 billion in benefits from the deductions for interest on a second home and state and local taxes went to households in the top 1%--an unrealistic assumption, since the cutoff for the 1% is far above $200,000--that only brings their taxes up to $360 billion. Factor in the 20 percent across-the-board cut in rates that Romney has promised, and their taxes fall to $288 billion. Net, that's a $41 billion reduction. On top of that, you have to add Romney's proposed reduction in corporate income taxes, since the rich pay a large proportion of corporate income taxes, at least according to the Tax Policy Center and the CBO.
Republican tax cut plans fall into two categories: the ones that don't bother pretending that they're going to be revenue neutral and the ones that do. But the latter can never make the numbers add up because you can't have massive rate cuts and be revenue neutral unless you're willing to eliminate popular tax expenditures for the middle class, the preference for investment income (the most important tax break for the rich people who pay for Republican politicians' campaigns), or both.
This is the guy who's supposed to be the hard-headed businessman?
* The title is a reference to this Atlantic column, which shows that there just aren't enough tax expenditures to balance out the huge rate cuts that Romney has promised to the 1%.
James Kwak is the co-author of White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You, available from April 3rd. This post is cross-posted from The Baseline Scenario. Read more from the Fiscal Affairs series here.
Follow James Kwak on Twitter: www.twitter.com/baselinescene
Richard (RJ) Eskow: The White House And Mortgage Fraud: So Far It's All Talk, No Action
Rep. Charles Rangel: Taxing You Twice: Mitt Romney's Draconian Deduction Plan
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
"I'm going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I'm probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go," Romney said. "Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later. But I'm not going to actually go through these one by one. What I can tell you is, we've got far too many bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states."
He is talking about shinking government. Less spending.
Now let's turn to your crowd on the left. Where is their budget? And what is in it?
Thanks for pointing out Romney's one-way street for the rich and famous..
Great Googly Moogly. This is absurd. Obamutt is out touting the all mighty Buffet Rule which will raise $47B over 10 years vs the $11.2 TRILIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN in budget deficit spending.
The delusion is stupefying. Truly you libs are living in a world where Unicorns and flowers fly out of your ...
It is a sad commentary that we reward people for betting on the stock market versus working for a living.
These past 30 years of conservative tax policies were intended to give the 1% as much wealth as they could gather so they could buy up the rest of the world before it became too expensive. Now they benefit more from those financial investments in foreign countries than they do with the business and industry they eviscerated here in America.
To the Republicans and the 1% THANKS FOR NOTHING!
Well, on second thought. No. I don't want to see that. I'll just wish that they get everything they deserve.
It is as if they decided to take as the chief political slogan for our times, the line from the song, "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies".
.
3 children, work 3 months per year, get $8000 tax refund, child support from 3 diff. fathers, pay dirt if one work for GM, food stamp, medicaid and unemployment. live with boyfriend that makes $40,000/year. His income is unreported for earned income tax credit purposes. need to get out more possibly leftright.
For Ryan and the hard right, tax cut are not just payback to their overwhelmingly wealthy constituency, but a means to an end. When they lower top marginal rates WE have to make up for it through elimination of healthcare tax exemptions and repeal of the mortgage interest deduction. When the final tax overhaul reduces revenues as a percent of GDP WE have to sacrifice everything from aid to the poor to retirement security and even funds necessary to enforce remaining laws on the books.
Ryan's austerity budget is a clear example of political opportunism. There's no other objective way to look at it.
He was not giving allegiance to this country, he was giving allegiancey to HIS MONEY.