Washington Post Editorial Board rips Romney a new one over Tax plan

of willard mitt romney. "The Tax Plan" Paraphrasing.. Never mind..here's the quote..



http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/08/clint-eastwood-at-romney-fundraiser-131073.html

So Freaking SHALLOW, Clint..and then ya went on to be made a national joke with your Chair.
Eastwooding, anyone?

Willard Needs to Release his TAX RETURNS

The article notes, in part:

> (W)hile closing loopholes sounds good — Make those oil companies pay! —
> the costliest ones are cherished by most Americans. These are tax provisions
> that promote home ownership, charitable giving, and employer-provided
> health care and that allow taxpayers to deduct their state and local income
> taxes. Limiting or eliminating these popular “loopholes” would be extremely
> difficult.

I have yet to see where anyone has gotten Romney, or Obama, to speak to the issue as to what their tax plans are going to be for that little provision in the law that allows "ministers" to receive income tax free income if it's designated as "housing" and used for "housing".

I have written about that recently here on the DU as well as the Forbes blogs.

Still, no one seems to have gotten the Obama and Romney position on that.

It's certainly one loophole that should be easy to close; considering it is, by some accounts, UNconstitutional on its face and the Freedom From Religion Foundation is currently in federal court seeking such a decision.

Sincerely,
Robert Baty

See:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2012/09/01/where-do-romney-and-obama-stand-on-special-tax-status-for-ministers/

1) Cut taxes

2) Increase military spending

3) Reduce the deficit

It only makes sense to those who lack the cognitive ability to stick a round peg in a round hole, or in other words their base.

What is it with politicians that they can't seem to do anything but rehash the same ol ideas---trash, don't work, causes more problems than they solve, gets people (soldiers) killed unnecessarily, and ends up on somebody else to fix! This man is too busy trying to imulate ronald reagan to see how short-signted and misinformed he is. shame, and he just may still end up our president!

and Bill Clinton's claim that the basic arithmetic of Romney's plan simply doesn't add up.

As much as one might criticize Obama's economic results (which I blame more on the GOP house and things beyond Obama's control), with a plan as bad in arithmetic as Romney's, it is to too flawed for Romney to win that debate which most folks feel he must if he's going to stage any sort of a political comeback in this election. And you just know that the fact checkers will have a field day with Romney's lies uttered during that debate because he hasn't been able to sustain any sort of credible attack with the truth.

with somebody (esp. Iran). Wanna bet that there's a "war tax" buried in his plans somewhere if he does?

"While the rich might pay more, he has said, the middle class would pay less. "

Has anybody been over to FreeRepublic (who has the stomach for it, I don't)? They must be F U R I O U S about Romney advocating taxing the "job creators" more. Somebody should ask Romney whose tax plan -- his or Obama's -- will raise taxes on the wealthy (err "job creators") more?

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Here's another one where Romney is committing the crime of not cutting the taxes on the "job creators" (though he doesn't say he is raising their taxes):

Romney says he won’t cut taxes on wealthy Americans, By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – Sun, Sep 9, 2012
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014224357

{My words unless in quotations}: That he is going to pay for the 20% across the board tax rate reduction by eliminating loopholes and deductions for high-income earners. He argued that his plan would in effect lower taxes for middle class Americans while keeping tax rates the same for wealthy Americans. "And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention, I am not reducing taxes on high income taxpayers."
But asked about "the specifics of how you get into this math," Romney declined to offer any additional details, suggesting the "principals" of his plan should be enough for Americans to judge his tax proposals.

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Weren't the Republicans last December requiring that Obama "pay for" extending a middle class (and lower class) tax cut -- the partial payroll tax holiday -- while arguing that their proposals for tax cuts for the wealthy don't need to be paid for because obviously, quite obviously tax cuts for the "job creators" create more jobs and boost revenue growth and so more than pay for themselves blah blah dee blah?

{#} Job Loss and Creation - Payroll Jobs

Factoids (official source follows):

# Under Obama there have been 30 straight months of private sector job growth (since February 2010), totaling 4.6 million jobs (thru August 2012 with July & August preliminary). Total job growth during this period is 4.1 million jobs ( 0.5 million government jobs were lost ).

# The economy Bush handed to Obama lost 4.3 million jobs during the last 10 months of the Bush administration. Furthermore, at the end of the Bush administration the rate of job losses was accelerating -- losing 2.28 million jobs just in his last 3 months -- an average of 760,000 lost jobs a month (the average of the last 3 months of the Bush presidency).

# 2.8 million payroll jobs have been created under Obama since June 2009 (that's when the recession ended according to the NBER (nber.org, the official arbiter of when the economic turning points occur), and only 5 months since Obama took office) (thru August 2012 with July & August preliminary) . Bush only created 1.1 million payroll jobs in his entire 8 year presidency

# 3.5 million private sector jobs were created under Obama since June 2009 (thru August 2012 with July & August preliminary) (contrast that to Bush destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs during his presidency)

# Bush's record: created 1.1 million payroll jobs - by creating 1.8 million government jobs and destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs. ( the actual numbers are, in thousands: 1,080, 1,753, 673 ). Yes, it is ironic that a supposed "small government conservative" ended up creating government jobs and destroying private sector jobs.

If someone says it is cherry-picking to compare Obama's last 30 months to Bush's entire presidency, then here are 3 comparable comparisons:

(1.) Comparing the last 30 months of Bush and Obama (so far, thru August 2012): Bush lost 2.6 million jobs, while Obama gained 4.1 million jobs.

(2.) Comparing the comparable 30 months of Bush and Obama's first term (3/1/02 thru 8/31/04 for Bush, 3/1/10 thru 8/31/12 for Obama): Bush gained 1.2 million jobs, while Obama gained 4.1 million jobs.

(3.) Comparing the first 43 months of Bush and Obama (from the beginning of each's first term through August 2004 (for Bush) and through August 2012 (for Obama)): Bush lost 856,000 jobs, while Obama lost 261,000 jobs.

.-------------------------------------------.

# The Clinton economy created 22.7 million payroll jobs of which 20.8 million were in the private sector

# If some rightie claims that Obama increased the federal workforce (as if that was bad), well that is true: Obama increased the federal workforce by 143,000, or 5.1%. But note that Romney as governor increased the number of Massachusetts state employees by 5.5%. Source: "Government Job Loss: President Obama’s Catch 22", ABC News, 6/6/12 http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/government-jobs-loss-president-obamas-catch-22/

Job Creation of record of post-WWII Presidents With Completed Terms, Average Annual % Increases :

(Sorted from best to worst by average annual percentage increase in jobs. Notice that -- with the tiny exception (0.02% difference) of Nixon vs. Kennedy -- the worst Democrat has a better record than the best Republican)




















Official sources of information for the above:

# Payroll Jobs: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
# Monthly change of above: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth
# . . Hint: to see both of the above two together on the same page, go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 and click on the "More Formatting Options" link in the upper right and check the "Original Data Value" and the "1-Month Net Change" checkboxes and click the "Retrieve Data" button halfway down the page on the left
# Private Sector Payroll Employment: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001
# Monthly change of above: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001?output_view=net_1mth
# . . Hint: to see both of the above two together on the same page, go to http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000001
and click on the "More Formatting Options" link in the upper right and check the "Original Data Value" and the "1-Month Net Change" checkboxes and click the "Retrieve Data" button halfway down the page on the left

This one compares all post-WWII presidents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms