Mitt Romney called an independent review of his tax plan by the Tax Policy Center “garbage” in an interview with Fortune magazine for claiming that it would give a tax break to the wealthy but increase taxes on the middle class. Romney said the TPC ignored the premise of his plan: that the wealthy would pay the same share they do today and that the middle class would see their tax burden reduced.
“Instead they made various assumptions about what they thought I would do which are not in fact accurate,” Romney said. “They made an assumption that I would reduce the home mortgage-interest deduction. I will not do that for middle-income taxpayers, as I have already indicated. There’s an old expression in the computer world: garbage in, garbage out. They made garbage assumptions and they reached a garbage conclusion.”
Though Romney provided no new details about how his plan would be revenue-neutral, he maintained that it was possible:
Simpson-Bowles laid out a formula that shows that you can do just as I described. That you can bring down the rates, limit deductions and exemptions for people at the high end, and with additional growth that comes by virtue of the stimulative action you can reach a balanced budget. I will follow a model similar to Simpson-Bowles and work with Congress to identify which of the alternative methods we should apply to reduce deductions, benefits, and exemptions. Those reductions will occur for people at the high end. I have noted before my commitment to preserve tax preferences for middle-income taxpayers such as homeownership, charitable giving and health care.
