A Freedom of Information Act request for correspondence between Ryan's office and the Environmental Protection Agency, filed by The Huffington Post, unearthed two additional instances in which the Wisconsin Republican petitioned for American Recovery Act funds. In addition, there were many other occasions in which the GOP vice presidential nominee asked the EPA for grant money for projects in Wisconsin's 1st District, which encompasses Ryan's hometown of Janesville and has a slight Democratic lean. Combined, the letters muddy Ryan's claim that the stimulus wasn't helpful and that government spending, more broadly, doesn't assist small businesses.Also: On the day of the debate, Steve Colbert became the first person on teevee to ask a question that's been bugging me for a while: If Mitt Romney plans to cut taxes on the rich and then make up for those cuts by getting rid of deductions...well, why? What has he accomplished?
Well, he would kill a lot of charities. There's that.
Beyond that, I presume that the plan is to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction, since Ryan refused to deny that such was in the offing. Such a move would, of course, hit the middle class hard.
As for the $17,000 deduction cap -- I think Romney is proposing this because he knows it will never fly with Congress.
2 comments:
Would those 'charities' killed include the Heritage Foundation? Their website states: The Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Click on their ad at google and cost them a few cents. The Heritage Foundation | AskHeritage.org
www.askheritage.org/
This alleged plan of Romney's was a bit of political opportunism, expedient at the time.
His real plan was his first one-- in which he kept the Bush rate cut levels, and didn't reduce those further. A tax cut then only against the expiration levels, but not a tax cut from where we were.
It was criticized as stodgy and overly cautious. By the leading lights of that crazy side. So out of nowhere, and apparently without much thought, Romney came up with cutting THAT (same) rate by 20%.
The rest now is improvisation, including that it would be revenue neutral. That was added later iirc when the huge deficit increase it implied motivated Romney to molt that snakeskin yet again.
So the only point all along is to say and do whatever it takes at the time to win. His 20% off the Bush tax rate cut continuation was solely to win the primaries.
XI
Post a Comment