Daily Intel reports on the Bob Schieffer ‘exclusive’ fail interview with Romney-Ryan:
“Romney praised Ryan’s (questionable) knack for bipartisanship several times, and looked on with approval as his charismatic running mate attacked President Obama for his “fundamental lack of leadership.” The duo are apparently so in step that they’ve started wearing matching outfits, and even share the same policy on disclosing financial information.”
But Daily Intel notes a curious turn in the interview when they began discussing tax differences between the aristocracy and the peasantry:
Bob Schieffer: You say of course the wealthiest people pay the larger share, but don’t they also pay at a lower rate? When you figure in capital gains and all of that?
Mitt Romney: Well, it depends on the individual, what their source of income is. But if you look at the top one percent or five percent or quartile, whatever, they pay the largest share of taxes. And that’s not something which I would propose making smaller.
Then Ryan jumped in to elaborate on Romney’s plan:
What we’re saying is take away the tax shelters that are uniquely enjoyed by people in the top tax brackets so they can’t shelter as much money from taxation, should lower tax rates for everybody to make America more competitive.
Huh? Suddenly Team Plutocracy is “proposing” taking away the tax shelters from the super rich? Here’s video via PoliticsUSA — watch Mitt’s face transform from pleased with himself (normal) to disapproving daddy in 11 seconds flat:
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Daily Intel notes, “As Jonathan Chait has discussed several times, a recent study by the Brookings Institution and the Tax Policy Center concluded that Romney’s tax plan would require a tax increase for the middle class, while the richest Americans would pay lower rates and a lower share of the tax burden.”
And we already know that Romney chose the one running mate whose tax plan would lower Mitt’s effective tax rate to less than 1%. There is NO WAY that Romney-Ryan are going to eliminate the very loopholes, shelters, and tax rates with which Romney has padded his fortune and is now angrily hiding from the American people. Remember this is a guy who took a $77,000 tax deduction on a horse in 2010 (who knows WHAT he’s deducted in the past 10 years). I’d like to hear Mitt Romney say that he thinks the highest incomes should pay more in taxes than they do now — and he never will. Because that is exactly what would happen without those shelters Ryan mentioned. Gaffe?
UNLESS, of course, Ryan forgot to mention (and Bob Schieffer helpfully let slide) that if Romney plans to take away tax shelters, he more than makes up for that by lowering the effective tax rate for top earners, and increasing it on the rest of us, which works out to the super rich paying even less in taxes either way.
Ha ha. How does fairness work?!
