Checking in on Romney's tax policy

Candidate Romney has me confused, and not for the first time. During the campaign he was pushed (by the necessity of matching Perry's proposal) to declare a tax rate reduction of 20%. As someone who can actually do math (unlike Perry), Romney hinted that the rate reduction would be offset by allowing fewer deductions, but he was careful not to be specific. He has dutifully remained vague.

In the debate, Romney forcefully declared that this tax cut wouldn't raise the deficit. That sounds so clear and definite. . . until you ask how.Since Romney didn't explain at the debate or in news clips since, I decided to look at his website. This is what I found:

• Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates

How does this square with his no deficit-blow-up pledge? I wanted to find out, so I went his nine-page tax policy document and found these statements:

• Maintain marginal rates at current levels

[and]

In the long run, Mitt Romney will pursue a conservative overhaul of the tax system that includes lower and flatter rates on a broader tax base.

It turns out that Mitt's tax policy paper contradicts his website on the 20% rate cut, and then gives no numbers on eventual lower tax rates.

I wish I could bring together a bunch of clips of all the positions Romney has taken on taxes, just to prove that he's had no consistency on the issue. Maybe the Obama campaign or a helpful superPAC will do it for me.

By the way, Romney is much less vague on what he'll do about corporate taxes. I guess corporations are more important than people, but unfortunately they don't get to vote.

Where, oh where, is the tax policy?

Image: desertbeacon.wordpress.com

Update 10/10/12. Normally, I'd think someone, either a journalist or a debate moderator or the confused public, would force Romney to clarify his tax plan, or least the priorities. However, it's been a week after the debate, and no one has yet cornered Romney into explaining if he's backing away from his 20% tax rate cut.

What is Romney's real tax policy?

It's difficult to nail down Romney's new tax plan that includes 20% across the board tax rate cuts. Is he proposing to offset these cuts with changes to the deductions or not? Romney or his economic adviser have said at various times, like here, that there will be changes to deductions making the cuts revenue-neutral.

Romney himself isn't clear whether he supports the 20% tax rate reduction by itself without the changes in deductions. In this op-ed from March 1, he fails to mention deductions or whether the cuts will be revenue-neutral. He's also embraced "dynamic scoring" which uses the assumption that tax cuts will lead to permanent economic growth and permanent higher revenue... just like the Bush tax cuts. It isn't clear whether he's bought into the faith that "tax cuts will pay for themselves" or whether he wants to cut rates more than dollar-for-dollar offsets will allow.

His lack of clarity may gain him votes from the trickle-down faithful. Maybe he's planning a bait-and-switch after the primaries so he'll look more fiscally responsible for the general election. Or maybe no one will pin him down and he won't decide what his tax plan really is until he's president. Of course there's a tradition of presidents not showing their true colors until they're elected, but I was hoping this campaign would be different. Tough luck on that, I guess.

Two flavors of flip-flop

So conservatives hate flip-floppers, do they? Well, they'll get to choose between two different flavors of the type.

Romney has famously flipped on abortion, his political leanings, cap and trade, immigration, and (highest of treasons) health insurance mandates. In each case, he's flipped to being harder.

Santorum's flips have been less notorious. He's been walking back his opposition to homosexuality. In the past, he thought it was fine for states to criminalize homosexuality acts. Now, he'd love his son if he was gay (and suppress those lectures on unnatural sex acts, I guess). He's also flipped on raising the retirement age, auditing the Fed, teaching intelligent design as science, right-to-work laws, and No Child Left Behind. Santorum has usually flipped to being softer, except for his previous support for unions and national education initiatives.

This is an important distinction with you're a red-blooded conservative. Do you support the johnny-come-lately conservative, or the becoming-less-paleolithic conservative? Most red conservatives are going for the barely-escaped-the-paleolithic conservative.

For me, it's an easy choice. I hope that, under all his recent pandering, Romney is still a moderate. I also think he's the Republican most likely to address our deficit problems. With Santorum, I suspect it's lower on the priority list, somewhere below "Pursue expensive war on Iran."

I wonder who the whole of the Republican party, not just the hard-core conservatives, will choose. Is there room for a semi-moderate who pretends he isn't? We shall see.

Getting to be a GOP tradition...