Eager to pick up some momentum for his on-again, off-again presidential campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney unveiled a revamped tax plan this week – one that includes substantially more in the way of tax relief.
Romney’s proposals – rolled out just days before GOP voters in Michigan and Arizona go to the polls – call for a reduction in the nation’s top income tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, i.e. where it was following former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reforms. In fact, Romney’s plan would reduce marginal rates on all brackets by 20 percent, while also eliminating the death tax and the alternative minimum tax, which unfairly subjects increasing numbers of Americans to punitively-high tax rates each year.
Romney would offset his proposed relief by eliminating many deductions and exemptions for high-income earners.
“To repair the nation’s tax code, marginal rates must be brought down to stimulate entrepreneurship, job creation, and investment, while still raising the revenue needed to fund a smaller, smarter, simpler government,” Romney said.
Previously, Romney had pledged to “maintain current tax rates on personal income” – a position that landed him in a bit of a pickle when it was revealed that he pays a much lower tax rate than most Americans given that the vast majority of his annual earnings come from investment income.
In addition to his new proposals, Romney has previously proposed lowering America’s corporate tax to 25 percent. Unfortunately, that’s still far too high – and is much higher than the corporate rates proposed by Rick Santorum (17.5 percent), Ron Paul (15 percent) and Newt Gingrich (12.5 percent).
What do we think of Romney’s Tax Plan 2.0?
Well, as we’ve said on countless previous occasions, there is no tax relief that stimulates economic activity quite like individual income tax relief. Why? Because cutting inc0me taxes not only empowers small businesses (most of which file individual returns) but it also empowers the consumer economy as a whole.
So as far as those aspects of his plan are concerned we’re big fans - it’s just a shame Romney didn’t come out with these proposals earlier. It’s also a shame that his record consists of tax hikes, not tax cuts.
As for Romney’s desire to “offset” the cuts, well … we’re made our thoughts on the doctrine of revenue neutrality perfectly clear.
Seriously … there’s a simple two-word answer that political candidates should offer anytime a whiny mainstream media reporter pipes up wondering “how are you going to pay for these tax cuts?”
“With growth.”
Nonetheless, this plan is obviously a tremendous improvement from Romney’s previous position on taxes.
Pic: via Daylife
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By Nolff February 22, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Instead of blue jeans to pretend he’s a regular joe, he should dress up like a NASCAR driver so we can identify his corporate sponsors. They’re people too.
By Skidmarks February 23, 2012 at 7:49 am
The deficit is here to stay. It can only be somewhat controlled by economic growth. The deficit this year, $1.75-trillion, is larger than the entire federal budget of $1.7 trillion ten years ago.
Now, it’s $11 trillion. Next year $14 trillion. In 2013, $17 trillion dollars, about the size of the Gross Domestic Product.
The President can explain what caused the deficit but neither he nor anyone else can hope for anything but small reductions in its size.
“For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception — a series of accounting tricks to hide the extent of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue and hope that the American people won’t notice: budgeting certain expenditures for just one year, when we know we’ll incur them every year for five or 10; budgeting zero dollars for the Iraq war — zero — for future years, even when we knew the war would continue; budgeting no money for natural disasters, as if we would ever go 12 months without a single flood, fire, hurricane or earthquake.”
By ? February 23, 2012 at 11:30 am
The lack of comments to this article after it being prominently displayed on the internets says it all:
“Who cares”.
Romney is so uninspiring in so many ways it’s almost hard to believe.
I think I could draw more inspiration from a pet rock.
By Common Sense February 23, 2012 at 12:38 pm
i thought he was a pet rock…sorry my bad.