Quote of the Day: Romney Still Not Making Sense on Taxes

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


From Mitt Romney, explaining his tax plan:

So number one, [] don’t raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don’t reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today.

Hold on. The top 5% will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But that means the bottom 95% will also pay the same share they pay today. Right? That’s just arithmetic.

So everyone will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But we’re going to lower taxes on the bottom 95%. So that means we have to lower taxes on the top 5% too. That’s the only way to keep their shares the same.

In other words, Romney is going to lower everyone’s taxes. Not just tax rates, actual taxes. And yet, his plan is going to be revenue neutral. How? Most likely it has something to do with Romney’s tax cuts creating new incentives that will supercharge the economy blah blah blah.

I guess believers gotta believe, but if you believe a word of this, you’re the kind of mark who’d still fall for the wire scam even after seeing The Sting a dozen times on late-night cable. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.  After all, it’s been less than ten years since George W. Bush ran the same swindle, and we all remember how that panned out, don’t we?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate