The Middle Class and Mitt Romney's Tax Plan
from James Kvaal, Obama Campaign National Policy Director:
January 6, 2012
Mitt Romney likes to say that his tax plan is written for middle-class families. “The wealthy are doing just fine,” he recently told Chris Wallace at FOX News. “The people that have been hurt are the people in the middle class so I focus those precious dollars that we have, I focus that on the middle class.”
But the Tax Policy Center took a hard look at his plan, and the numbers tell a different story. The Romney plan—like failed Republican policies of the past—delivers large tax breaks to the families that are already doing the best, while giving nothing to most middle-class families.
We already knew that his tax break for capital gains and other investment income is worth only $54 for a typical family. But for his tax plan as a whole, we now know that:
Almost half (49 percent) of Romney’s tax breaks go to families making more than $1 million a year—the top 0.4 percent of households. These families get an average of $146,000 each.
Because Romney ends middle-class tax credits for college, children, and earned income, most families in the middle get no help or actually pay more. On average they get only $138—less than $3 a week. In fact, the bottom 80 percent of families would get only 5 percent of the help, and many would end up paying more.
To deliver these regressive tax cuts, the plan drives up the deficit by $180 billion in 2015 alone.
Governor Romney apparently subscribes to the tired idea that, if we give a lot to those at the top, somehow everyone else will do better. We’ve tried that, and it didn’t work. President Obama believes that, if we want a strong middle class, we need a tax code that reflects our values and allows us to invest in education, research, and high-tech manufacturing—the things that drove American to lead the world.
read: http://www.barackobama.com/news/entry/the-middle-class-and-mitt-romneys-tax-plan
Tax Policy Center-
Urban Institute, Brookings Institution
Romney Plan: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/romney-plan.cfm
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