You gotta hand it to Mittens. He lies about everything and he'd sell his own mother out to get votes, but in one respect he's totally honest and consistent: his contempt for the American people and his determination to put money into his own pocket remain rock solid. Willard's new tax plan is an example of this. The story is here. First, let's hear from Willard himself:
"One of the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, that was used to suggest I don’t care about education,...So I think it’s important for me to point out that I anticipate that there will be departments and agencies that will either be eliminated or combined with other agencies. So for instance, I anticipate that housing vouchers will be turned over to the states rather than be administered at the federal level, and so at this point I think of the programs to be eliminated or to be returned to the states, and we’ll see what consolidation opportunities exist as a result of those program eliminations. So will there be some that get eliminated or combined? The answer is yes, but I’m not going to give you a list right now."
In short, I won't tell you specifically what I want to do because it will cost me! Ah, that Willard! Always ahead of the curve.
Well, there are some folks keeping track of what Willard wants to do, such as The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From their summary:
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's proposals to cap total spending, boost defense spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget would require extraordinarily large cuts in nondefense programs. For the most part, Governor Romney has not outlined cuts in specific programs. [I wonder why?] But if policymakers exempted Social Security from the cuts, as Romney has suggested, and then cut Medicare, Medicaid, and all other nondefense programs by the same percentage, balancing the budget and adhering to the Romney spending cap would require cuts of 35 percent in 2016 and 56 percent in 2022. Without the balanced budget requirement, the cuts would be smaller but still massive — 28 percent in 2016 and 38 percent in 2022.
For nondefense discretionary programs — those subject to annual appropriation — these cuts would come on top of the 11-percent cut already in law due to the discretionary funding caps of the Budget Control Act (BCA) that Congress enacted last August. Our estimates of the depth of cuts that the Romney proposals would require are consistent with what Governor Romney himself has said about the required cuts.
These cuts are far deeper than those that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-WI) austere budget plan would require. They would shrink nondefense discretionary spending — which, over the past 30 years, has averaged 3.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and never fallen below 3.2 percent — to just 1.7 percent by 2022.
Draconian doesn't begin to describe this. And of course, Willard plans to ENORMOUSLY reduce taxes on the wealthy at the same time. His proposal?
The analysis out Thursday from the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution think tanks, finds that under Romney's plan the bottom 20 percent would see their average federal tax rate increase $149, or 1.3 percent.Draconian doesn't begin to describe this. And of course, Willard plans to ENORMOUSLY reduce taxes on the wealthy at the same time. His proposal?
The top 20 percent, meanwhile, would see an average tax cut of $16,134 -- a 5.4 percent reduction in their tax rate. The top one percent of earners would see their average tax rate fall by nearly $150,000 per year, and the top 0.1 percent would see a reduction of more than $725,000. [Emphasis added]
Romney's original plan called for making the Bush-era tax cuts permanent, getting rid of the estate tax (now paid only by those with estates worth $5 million or more), getting rid of taxes on investment income for those making less than $200,000, and lowering the corporate tax rate ten points to 25 percent. Last week he said he would also cut marginal, individual income tax rates by 20 percent for everyone who pays taxes.
According to the Tax Policy Center, Romney's plan would add $900 billion to the deficit in 2015, when the changes would go into full effect. The group has also found that the 20 percent tax cut, combined with Romney's proposal to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, would add $3 trillion to the deficit over ten years - even if the Bush-era tax cuts and more recent tax cuts are extended.
Disaster. Sheer out-and-out disaster. No wonder Willard is being evasive and dishonest about his intentions. When you plan to screw the poor, the elderly, the sick, and America's fiscal health for the sake of pouring even more money into your own pocket, why wouldn't you be?
