Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that there really is a voter in the actual world who is agnostic about which party he or she prefers but is really, really concerned about the federal debt. This is the prototypical swing-voter that Third Way is always yammering about. We have to appeal to this voter. Now, what would this agnostic voter think if they learned this about Mitt Romney’s tax plans:
Regarding taxes, Romney said, “I’m going to probably eliminate for high income people the second home mortgage deduction.” He also said that he would “likely eliminate deductions for state income and property taxes.” The campaign is already attempting to walk the comments back, with a Romney adviser telling CNN, “He was tossing ideas out, not unveiling policy.”
For starters, Romney’s tax ideas, while reasonable, would raise nowhere near enough money to offset the huge tax cuts that he has in mind. Those tax cuts would increase the deficit by $900 billion in 2015 alone. Meanwhile, eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes, one of the largest tax expenditures for the government, for everyone saves $72 billion per year, and saves far less if the elimination is limited to upper-income Americans.
Romney is proposing adding trillions of dollars in debt. He isn’t saying that this is what he wants to do, but that is what the math tells us will be the logical result of his tax policies. This shouldn’t surprise a student of history because two out of the last three Republican presidents enacted huge tax cuts that resulted in trillions of dollars in debt. Romney is just following in the shoes of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
If our agnostic voter was faced with this information, I imagine he or she would become quite alarmed. They’d probably want to know if what Obama is proposing is better or worse.
Let’s take a look:
President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion spending plan on Monday for 2013 that seeks to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade but does little to restrain growth in the government’s huge health benefit programs, a major cause of future deficits.
Obama’s new budget was immediately attacked by Republicans as a retread of previously rejected ideas. The budget battle is likely to be a major component of the fall election campaign.
The president would achieve $1.5 trillion of the deficit reductions in tax increases on the wealthy and by removing certain corporate tax breaks. Obama rejected GOP charges of class warfare. In his budget message, he said, “This is not about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare.”
So, Obama plans to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade while Romney’s proposal would add nearly a trillion dollars in debt in 2015 alone.
I think our agnostic voter might be a little discouraged about the prospects of getting our debt under control under either scenario, but at least one candidate is trying to make things better, while the Republican is trying to make things worse.
But if you don’t really give a crap about the deficit and your main concern is that you have been Taxed Enough Already, then you will probably prefer Romney.
