Romney Proposes Tax Changes
Written by Sam on August 16th, 2007Romney’s savings proposal would eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains for middle-class families. He said he knew what pay range he considers middle class, but will announce those figures “in a speech to be delivered.”The call for making permanent the Bush tax cuts — which benefit only the most wealthy people in this country — is not new with Romney, or many other Republicans for that matter.
When asked by a man in the crowd about the so-called “Fair Tax,” Romney said that “taxes that are fairer and flatter are a good starting point,” but that the Fair Tax that’s been proposed in Congress has drawn criticism from retailers and those in the home sales industry, so that it would need to be studied more.
On tax relief, Romney also wants to eliminate the death tax and lower corporate taxes.
This isn’t as ambitious of an agenda I’d like to hear regarding taxes, but it’s okay. It’s a bit ridiculous that candidates even have to talk about making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but that is just another failure of his administration when you consider his own party controlled the Congress. I definitely like the elimination on dividends and capital gains, although with my luck in investing gains aren’t something I usually have to deal with.
16
PM
his proposals seem good, but whenever someone suggests tax cuts they also should give ways to reduce spending.
17
PM
Fairtax is extremely interesting. My one issue is that it strikes me as an “overnight change” where we have income taxes one minute and a national sales tax the next; the economy works best with predictable change rather than instantaneous ones, even if the policy change is hypothetically better.
17
PM
I think the FairTax is a great idea. However, I don’t blame a candidate for not making it the centerpiece of his tax policy in his campaign because come general election time, like it or not, the FT will be easily demagogued by Hillary or whoever the Democrat is. All you have to say is, “23% national sales tax” and you will lose a significant portion of the population who aren’t going to bother to hear the rest of the details of the proposal. You are not going to get every voter to read “The FairTax Book” and truly understand the proposal due to the spin that will inevitably be put out by the DNC.
Campaigning for general tax reform including ending the Death Tax and lowering taxes across the board, with vocal support of the FairTax (without making it the centerpiece) would be fine with me as long as I trust the candidate to actually push for real tax reform when in office.
Like it or not, sometimes in politics you have to realize what issues are easily demagogued and choose your words wisely on the campaign trail. I may be proven wrong, but that’s the way I see it with regards to the FairTax.