Josh points out that all of the six “studies” rely on various assumptions, some of which Mitt has explicitly rejected, not to mention the usual sorts of right-wing jiggery-pokery—unleashing the private sector and all that—but what’s the point? Mitt hasn’t said that he will eliminate any of the tax expenditures—he hasn’t even committed himself to reducing any of them by a single dollar. Why give him a dime’s worth of credit for doing something that he has explicitly refused to say he will do?
Mitt’s figleaf is that he can’t tell Congress what to do—except that he somehow can tell them to cut tax rates by 20 percent. How come he doesn’t present his plan the other way around—promise to eliminate all tax expenditures on households with incomes above $200,000 and then ask Congress to decide how much tax rates should be cut? It’s ridiculous to discuss whether Romney’s plan could work, because there is no plan. There’s only voter bait.
Afterwords
In the “real world,” all six studies are nonsense. Excuse me, but when Congress starts fussing with the tax code, how often is it that the rich come off with the short end of the stick? The Democrats have been talking about increasing taxes on hedge-fund billionaires since 2006, and they still haven’t gotten around to it. Are the Republicans going to be more brave?
