Cathleen Allison / AP
Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. campaigns at the Peterbilt Truck & Parts Equipment company in Sparks, Nev., Friday, Sept. 7, 2012.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have declined to release details of their tax plan, because they want to work out the specifics with Congress after the election, Ryan said on Sunday.
"We want to have this debate in the public," he told This Week's George Stephanopoulos. "We want to have this debate with Congress."
Ryan was responding to Bill Clinton's Wednesday address to the Democratic National Convention, in which the former president claimed a Romney administration would eliminate middle class tax deductions. "If they stay with this $5 trillion tax cut plan in a debt reduction plan, the arithmetic tells us, no matter what they say, one of three things is about to happen," Clinton said. "One, assuming they try to do what they say they’ll do ... they’ll have to eliminate so many deductions, like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving, that middle-class families will see their tax bills go up an average of $2,000, while anybody who makes $3 million or more will see their tax bill go down $250,000."
"The question is not necessarily what loopholes go, but who gets them," Ryan replied. "High income earners use most of the loopholes. That means they can shelter their income from taxation. But if you take those loopholes, those tax shelters, away from high income earners, more of their income is subject to taxation and that allows us to lower our tax rates on everybody."
Stephanopoulos pressed Ryan on this point, asking how Americans could trust Romney and Ryan to lower taxes on the middle class when they wouldn't say specifically which deductions they planned to eliminate. "Don't voters have a right to know which loopholes you're going to go after?" he asked.
"So Mitt Romney and I, based on our experience, think the best way to do this is to show the framework, show the outlines of these planks, and then work with Congress to do this," Ryan replied. "That's how you get things done."
Ryan also rejected Stephanopoulos' suggestion that this amounted to a "secret plan."
"What we don't want is a secret plan," he said. "What we don't want to do is cut some backroom deal like Obamacare and then hatch it to the country."
Clinton's numbers came from a Tax Policy Center study which Mitt Romney derided as "garbage." Nonetheless, the institute stands by its research, and pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA has deployed it in a new ad which echoes Clinton's line of attack.
Leave a Comment:
Honestly, going into all of this campaigning, I never thought that Ryan could be this bad. He is much worse in presenting positions, other than what is laughable, than I could ever think possible. And to think, our Vice President has to debate this character. Pathetic.
Of course, Ryan and Romney won't name the loopholes they'd close, for two reasons. First, because they know that whatever they choose will offend someone whose votes they need for the election. It's also because they've already been hit with "it doesn't add up" (which, of course, it doesn't) and if they provide any specifics it'll be even clearer than it currently is that their math doesn't add up.
If they can fool enough people, they must be thinking, maybe, just maybe, we can squeak through this thing. Then we can implement our real agenda of soak the middle class, give tax breaks to the rich and eliminate all spending that doesn't go directly to their good buddies, the defense contractors.
They can't fool that many people.
Ryan defends not specifying which tax loopholes Romney would close.
Ryan who has spent 14 years in Congress should properly defend Congresses of the past as we should suspect that the Tax Code has been before that Congress since long before that.
Congress we suspect has had lot to do with writing that Tax Code. Congress also is busy answering phone calls from donors and lobbyist requesting them to slip in a provision of two.
Why we should doubt the actions of Congress for the last two years, examine the activities of the last four years, or be wary of all of Congressional activities regards with the tax code? These common doubts of a desperate people would be beyond Ryan's comprehension. Ryan's just too close to the activities of Congress, and knows too much that would compromise the political system, the secrets withheld from public view.
You, who do remember Congress activities for these relevant years, will also remember that nothing of the President of the United States' plans must ever see the light of day. The Presidents plans are to remain invisible, denied and obfuscated, stopped, stymied, trashed and ridiculed.
Since these are the only duties, obligations, responsibilities and lite duties Congress has seen fit for itself, and has covertly, secretly, as well publically on the platforms of the House and the Senate, sought to insult the intelligence of the President, and to run rough shod over these august bodies and trod into the gutter the Citizenry of the United States.
So it is completely defensible that an inconsolate Congress, having acted so often, so quietly and so secretly on the Tax Code for long these many years, cannot not now, before this vital election, suddenly act to in manor that the Citizenry would have long expected as being the Constitutional Responsibilities.
If Congress cannot act in 60 days, it is because it cannot act the past 365 days, or a thousand days, or five thousand days, this supports the attraction of inaction from Congress capable of doing nothing.
How could anyone possibly expect Congress members in the next 60 days to put forth and to run on an election platform presented in such haste before the citizens for those citizens to make an informed decision?
Those citizens are not informed, how could a secret Congressional Cabal, possibly have informed the citizenry, and kept it secrets? The citizens deserve better than to be informed by the proper and expected members of Congress, when such activities are unknown, invisible and did not happen?
To expect the known details of the Tax Code to discussed in just a few days before the election, would be worse than having delayed and deceived the Citizenry, though out the years, and by years end on end. Those years, that larger conspiracy, must remain unknown to the public. That public given a modicum of outrage, and perennial frustration may just fight voter suppression, and obscuring of voting requirements, and show up to clog the voting polls with riotous condition.
So my fellow citizens, Ryan's defense against not specifying which tax loop holes to close is quite valid, given the larger fraud wrapped in a larger conspiracy to take the country in a Romney direction, which cannot be predicted in advance.
The Ryan plan is brilliant in that takes natural advantage of conditions created by Ryan's colleagues in Congress.
The plan, has been made impossible by the brilliant plan!
Seriously folks, do you really think anything said by Romney or Ryan can be trusted anymore than the crap that Obama has been feeding us for the past 4 or 5 years?
They are all politicians! They lie so easily that they do not know the truth themselves.
There is only one fact to consider and it is personal, are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? If you answer Yes then vote for Obama. If you answer No, then vote for Romney. Nothing else matters. They are all a bunch of liars. That's all our teachers are capable of producing these days.
It really does offend me that both sides of the coin are so full of the CaCa ,but seriously, Romney Ryan it is like they recruited from the hydrocephalus ward ,those are the poor unfortunate humans who's craniums fill with water and grow to ungodly proportions God have mercy on their souls but leave Mitt's and Twits where they are so we can rationalize what the hell is wrong with both of them
I don't know about you, but when I am making a plan for our household, and I know what has to be done, sometimes it takes a while to put a plan together. We know we have to cut spending, but you must have access to information before you actually make firm decisions. Obama made lots of criticisms about Bush, but when he got access to information and to details, he did a lot of things just like Bush at even higher levels. So... Not having the exact cuts in mind doesn't bother me. I want him to look at all budget areas and make informed decisions. Taking a few months to gather that information before acting is wise. Taking four years before acting is atrocious!