Forbes: Romney can't deny his tax plan is a giveaway to fellow millionaires

So Romney called this think-tank "objective" when it criticized his rival Rick Perry's tax plan, but called it "liberal" when it criticized his own tax plan for giving huge tax breaks to the rich at the expense of the middle class.

Indeed, "the centrist Tax Policy Center found that Romney's tax cuts would boost after-tax income by an average of 4.1 percent for those earning more than $1 million a year, while reducing by an average of 1.2 percent the after-tax income of individuals earning less than $200,000."

What a self-serving, plutocratic liar!

Romney Tax Plan Devastated By Non-Partisan Tax Policy Center-But Is The Tax Policy Center Really Non-Partisan?

By Rick Ungar

August 1, 2012 | Forbes

A study out today by the Tax Policy Center—a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute—concludes that the Romney tax plan will result in "large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers."

As one might expect, the report became the big news over at Obama headquarters and the headline attraction during the President's campaign swing through Ohio today.

Before you presume that this must be some liberal hatchet job to be dismissed out of hand (we will explore that possibility in a moment), there a few things you will want to know about the study—and then you can jump to your conclusions.

For starters, the report keys its results on Governor Romney's promise that any tax cuts provided will be 'revenue neutral'—meaning that every dollar he cuts in taxes will be paid for by either increasing revenue from some other source or cutting expenses somewhere else on the balance sheet.

While Romney has gone on record as saying that he will produce the revenue neutral result by eliminating deductions and tax code loopholes, he has—to date—declined to be specific in stating exactly what deductions and loopholes he will do away with to make it all work.

The good news? Because the Tax Policy Center did not know what Romney would actually eliminate, they took the trouble to construct a wide variety of models in an effort to see what results would emerge under different scenarios involving the many possible loopholes a Romney administration could choose to close and deductions that could disappear.

The bad news for Governor Romney is that—no matter how the Tax Policy Center structured the effort to balance the result of the proposed tax cuts, even going so far as to run the model under the assumption that Romney would first eliminate those deductions and loopholes that currently inure to the benefit of the wealthiest Americans—the result always turned out the same way.

The wealthy win big—middle and lower income earners…not so much.

This from the report-

Even when we assume that tax breaks – like the charitable deduction, mortgage interest deduction, and the exclusion for health insurance – are completely eliminated for higher-income households first, and only then reduced as necessary for other households to achieve overall revenue-neutrality- the net effect of the plan would be a tax cut for high-income households coupled with a tax increase for middle-income households.

So, is this just a case of a liberal think tank attack to be dismissed out of hand?

When it comes to think tanks, it can be difficult to say—particularly when we're talking about an organization filled with accountants and other mathematical money crunchers who can, undoubtably, do amazing things when it comes to playing with numbers to achieve a desired result.

During the 2008 campaign, Senator McCain certainly branded the organization as a liberal shill doing the bidding of the Democrats.

However, when reviewing what the organization had to say about the Obama tax plans in during the 2008 campaign,  I didn't think they were all that favorable to the candidate who ended up winning the prize. Still, they certainly appeared to have more love for the Obama approach than the McCain plan so one can see why Senator McCain might be ready to dismiss the group as a liberal front, even if the Center's conclusions were an honest statement of where their research led them .

Certainly, Governor Romney finds himself in agreement with the McCain assessment. Upon release of the study today, his campaign issued a statement saying, "President Obama continues to tout liberal studies calling for more tax hikes and more government spending." The campaign was also quick to add that one of the authors of the study is an ex-Obama employee.

But there are some problems which should not be ignored —assuming that objectivity is your interest.

For starters, the Tax Policy Center report says nothing that could remotely be interpreted as calling for more tax hikes or government spending. And while we could be generous and simply consider the Romney campaign's response to be standard rhetorical fare, there is an even larger problem – Governor Romney did not always think that the Tax Policy Center was such a liberal organization.

As Benji Sarlin over at TPM reminds us, when the Tax Policy Center issued a report beating up on Texas Governor Rick Perry during the GOP primary race, the Romney campaign issued a press release referring to the study that read, "Objective, Third-Party Analysis Showed Governor Perry's Plan Would Raise Taxes On Millions Of American Families – But He Doesn't Seem Interested In The Discussion."

So, when the Tax Policy Center attacked the Perry tax plan, they were—according to the Romney camp—'objective'. Yet, when the same think tank reports on the impact of the Romney policy proposals, the organization suddenly become 'liberal' and, therefore, biased.

I know. I know. That's just politics.

But you know what is not politics? The complete and utter inability of the Romney campaign to respond to today's study with appropriate facts and figures revealing why, in their judgment, the study gets it wrong.

Maybe the Romney folks just didn't have time to react with substance and thought it necessary to get a more political statement out there to take the edge off of the field day the President was treated to as a result of the report's conclusions? That's a tough explanation to buy as the Romney campaign had a heads up on this one.

It turns out that, back in January of this year, The Wall Street Journal published an article reporting on a similar study by this very same think tank which, while not as dispositive as the new study, reached pretty much the identical result.

Thus, the Romney campaign has had months to consider their response to the charge that his tax cut proposals will badly impact on everyone but the wealthy.

And still, all we got today was a statement that the report is to be discredited because the organization publishing the study is a 'liberal' think tank—despite the fact that the Tax Policy Center is generally regarded as unbiased (with some argument to be made that they might lean a bit to the left) and despite the fact that Romney himself has previously labeled the group as "objective".

Something is wrong here. Either Governor Romney should tell us why the study fails or acknowledge that the tax cuts he proposes for the wealthy will either result in increased taxes for to those who earn less or will not, in fact, be revenue neutral after all.

If you are willing to let the Republican presidential campaign off the hook by dismissing what is a fairly extensive, fair and balanced report (I suggest you read the study)—where the authors actually appear to go to the extreme to give the Governor the benefit of the doubt—then I have some California government bonds I'd like to sell you. They're a great investment…honest.