WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney's presidential campaign on Tuesday morning launched a new TV ad that criticizes President Barack Obama for raising taxes and promises a Romney administration would "close loopholes for millionaires."
"To pay for government-run health care, you'll pay higher taxes and more for your medicine," the ad says. An administration led by Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), meanwhile, would cut taxes for the middle class. "And they'll close loopholes for millionaires."
Romney and Ryan have promised to close millionaires' tax loopholes before, though they have never been specific about which loopholes they'd close. On Sunday, Ryan said "it would take me too long to explain" how the campaign's tax policy works. (Romney is intimately familiar with millionaires' tax loopholes.)
As for the claim that Obama has raised taxes, Romney recently admitted that no tax hikes have actually taken effect during Obama's first term. "I admit this, he has one thing he did not do in his first four years, he's said he's going to do in his next four years, which is to raise taxes," Romney said. The Congressional Budget Office reported in July that federal taxes reached their lowest point in 30 years during Obama's first year as president.
An analysis by the CBO found that six million Americans, most of them middle class, will face a tax penalty for not buying health insurance in 2016 under new universal health care regulations passed under Obama. An analysis released Tuesday morning by the Commonwealth Fund, a health care research foundation, found Romney's health care plan would leave 72 million uninsured.
UPDATE: 10:45 a.m. -- Obama campaign spokeswoman Liz Smith responded to the ad in an email, saying that "Mitt Romney's claim that the President raised taxes on the middle class is false -- just ask Mitt Romney. Last week, Romney said at a rally that the President has not raised taxes and he's right."
Smith continued, "In fact, the President has cut taxes by $3,600 for the typical family, while cutting taxes for small businesses 18 times. But Romney’s proposing a $ 5 trillion tax cut skewed toward millionaires and billionaires that would require him to raise taxes on middle class families by cutting deductions they rely on, like the mortgage interest deduction."
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