Marco Rubio Throws Cold Water On Romney's Tax Plan

Source: Huffington Post

Marco Rubio On Romney Tax Plan: Don't Touch The Biggest Deductions

NEW YORK -- Underscoring just how hard a political lift Mitt Romney's tax reform plan would be if pursued, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on Tuesday that he would be uncomfortable with any plan that cut down some of the biggest deductions.

"There will be a very helpful debate about whether things like the charitable deduction, the health insurance premium, the home interest deduction should be part of the deal," Rubio told a crowd of journalists at a Bloomberg View event. "I don't think that those, especially the home interest deduction, is troubling, because it really helps the middle class. Do you really want to hurt charitable giving in a country when you are saying that you want to rely less on government and more on private institutions to deal with these issues? And how are you going to raise taxes on people on their health care premiums when you are saying you want there to be a system in place where folks can have more control over their own money?"

Rubio's analysis of who benefits from these deductions is correct. It is primarily the lower and middle class. But politically, his statement throws cold water on Romney's tax reform plan. Without touching the charitable, home interest, or health care deductions, there isn't even close to enough revenue to pay for a 20-percent across the board rate cut of the kind that the Republican nominee has pledged -- even including those exemptions and deductions doesn't get you close. A recent Joint Committee on Taxation report suggested that including those exemptions and deductions would get you toward 4 percent of the cost.

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