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Republicans only care about cutting taxes for the rich, wrote Jesse LaGrecca on Daily Kos.
"Mitt Romney would raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans during a depression so he can cut taxes on rich people," he wrote.
On Friday, Romney said the claims that his proposed tax plan will raise taxes on the middle class are "patently, simply false."
The Obama campaign seized on his comments, pointing to a recent Tax Policy Center/Brookings Institute study that shows that Romney's plan would raise the middle class' tax burden.
The study concluded that the plan would eliminate loopholes and deductions, such as the mortgage interest deduction, resulting in an average increase of $2,000 in taxes for the middle class.
According to the study, Romney's plan -- absent any expansion of the tax base -- would reduce revenues by $360 billion in 2015 because it includes the elimination of taxes on investment income and the estate tax, a reduction in the corporate income tax rate and repeal of the alternative minimum tax.
"According to statements by Governor Romney and his advisors, the remainder of the plan will include policies to offset this revenue loss, although there are no details on how that would be achieved," states the report.
The authors point out that the goal of Romney's plan is similar to Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, which calls for reducing tax rates and raising revenues by broadening the tax base, an affect the
The Romney tax cuts, states the study, predominately favor upper-income taxpayers. Those with incomes over $1 million would see their after-tax income increased by 8.3 percent, or about $175,000. Those who make between $75,000 and $100,00 would see an increase of 2.4 percent, or about $1,800, while those making less than $30,000 would see a decrease of about .9 percent, or about $130.
To offset the loss of $360 billion in revenues would result in a loss of 65 percent of available tax expenditures, the authors wrote.
"Such a reduction ... would be unprecedented, and would require deep reductions in many popular tax benefits ranging from the mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, the deduction for charitable contributions and benefits for low- and middle-income families and children like the EITC and child tax credit," they stated.
That means Romney's tax plan would actually shift $86 billion from high-income taxpayers onto the backs of lower- and middle-income taxpayers. The tax plan would also result in a higher tax burden for families with children than on those without children.
The study also questions whether Romney would ever even be able to reduce or eliminate popular tax deductions such the mortgage interest deduction, charitable giving and health insurance deductions.
"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 net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers ..." they concluded.
"The only way Romney can keep the Bush tax cuts, cut taxes by 20 percent on top of that, and keep revenue at its current level is to borrow huge sums of money or raise taxes on the vast majority of Americans," wrote the American Prospect's Jamelle Bouie. "If he's unwilling to take either route, then he'll have to make huge cuts to existing social services -- which, for many Americans, will amount to a tax hike."
But Romney continues to insist that his plan would not raise taxes on the middle class. If that's so, it would explode the deficit.
"What that means is that his plan won't close the loopholes that the middle class enjoys," wrote the Washington Post's Bruce Sargent. "If Romney doesn't intend to close those loopholes, the tax cuts will not be paid for. Romney could argue that the cost of the tax cuts will be offset not by closing middle class loopholes, but with spending cuts. But until he details what those cuts would be, his plan either raises taxes on the middle class or it doesn't pay for itself. Period."
Romney's many albatrosses -- Bain Capital, his tax returns, his ostentatious wealth, an $88,000 tax deduction for his Olympics horse, the proposed car elevator in his home -- depict him as an self-serving plutocrat, indifferent to the lives of ordinary Americans struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. His tax plan doesn't help in any way.
"The only way for Romney to settle these questions is to release his tax returns and write a more detailed plan, but the campaign has already ruled both out of the question," wrote Bouie.
"Prince Romney has no clothing," wrote LaGrecca. "Romney hopes that by being a vague chameleon, or a Chamillionaire if you prefer, Romney might focus all the blame on Obama without expressing any specifics on how a President Romney would govern because Team Romney knows that if Romney disclosed his tax records or his governing plan he would lose in a landslide."
