I get emails from the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign all the time, and I usually just glance over them to see if it includes anything I don’t already know.
However, I’m looking at a mail claimed to be written by Harry Reid (from the address info@searchlightpac.com), titled “Paul Ryan Math.” It makes some reasonable assertions and not-too-far-from-the-truth claims about Paul Ryan’s budget plans, until the following:
[QUOTE=Harry Reid]
Truth is, his Medicare plan would cost seniors an extra $6,400 a year, his tax plan would let Mitt Romney pay less than one
percent, and his budget numbers simply don’t add up.
[/quote]
The first and third claims are either true, or pretty close to it depending on your perspective. The second claim, which I emphasized, seems particularly dishonest though. Has Paul Ryan ever actually proposed or endorsed a plan which would give Mitt Romney a “less than one percent” tax rate? Is there a way to parse that, which isn’t outright false?
Ryan’s 2010 plan had a zero capital gains tax. Almost all of Romney’s taxes come from capital gains, so if that plan had become a reality, Romney would’ve paid pretty close to zero in total federal taxes.
Which Romney said he would have signed. By taking on Ryan as his running mate, Romney bought into the whole Ryan package. Sure, Ryan walked it back when the noxious truth came out, but would he walk it back in with his party in charge of the entire government? Probably.
I believe he would sign it. That still does not mean it’s his current plan. Nor is it Ryan’s current plan. Obama would have signed a single payer bill. perhaps we should attack him for favoring a government-run health care system?
Not sure about the current Ryan plan - from what I can tell he “vaguified” it for the 2012 budget so that it just instructs CBO to evaluate options to get to target revenue via tax cuts and expenditure cutting.
The Romney plan calls for 0% on capital gains for earners up to $200k, IIRC. With, of course, the 20% cut on marginal rates on earned income as well. And some various unspecified cuts in deductions. So really there is no way to accurately predict what Romney would pay under his own plan until he releases the details of what deductions he wants to cut (which, of course, he won’t).
Fair enough, adaher, although I’ll note that if Romney supported the 2011 Ryan budget (which would have left him at a taxable rate of 0.83), it’s fair to call him out on supporting it.
Either way, it seems Romney’s plan is still much better for the top few percentage points of income.
So, you are saying Romney infected Ryan with flip-flop-itis? And has Ryan ever said why he has changed his mind (besides the obvious reason that it wouldn’t fly in a campaign?) Do we have any reason not to believe that the 2011 version is what he would really want to see implemented if they win?
Sorry, you just can’t put the old plan down the memoryhole.
So the ‘Ryan Plan’ did have a less than 1% tax rate. That plan being his plan, then the answer is pretty obvious, it’s true. The argument for falseness is that the ‘Ryan Plan’ isn’t some specific plan, but could have any part of it change for political convenience. But that also makes it true since one of those political conveniences could be Mitt paying less than 1%.
Ryan’s plan changed in response to the special election defeats over Medicare. He reached out to Ron Wyden and they came up with a bipartisan compromise plan and that’s currently what Ryan supports. Romney supports something a little different from that, although I believe he’d sign the Ryan plan if that’s what Congress sent him.
That’s how politics is SUPPOSED to work. The Republicans passed a politically tough plan. THey got hammered for it. So they changed it in response to public rejection.
Democrats could learn from that, rather than just passing a bill the public hates and then acting as if they did nothing wrong.
Obama submitted a multi-payer plan to Congress, and moved heaven and earth to get it passed. PPACA even covers distracting strawmen.
I have not reviewed the Romney and Ryan tax plans myself. From the coverage of those who have, I’ve concluded that what Romney and Ryan have so far is the cover sheet for a tax plan and not an actual tax plan that can be evaluated for impact on the budget and the economy.
It’s a set of basic principles and their tax plans differ. Ryan wanted to eliminate capital gains taxes. Romney does not have that in his plan.
When it comes to tax and spending decisions, you can’t really make promises because Congress decides that stuff. So yeah, Romney would probably sign the Ryan plan if it passed Congress, either the 2011 version or the new version. Likewise, he’d sign a compromise bill that included only a little of what he and Ryan want but also includes many Democrat priorities.
