The Latest On Romney's Tax Plan: It Helps The Rich And Hurts The Poor

A study published yesterday by the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan research venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, with the mission of providing the public with data concerning tax issues, indicates that, “any revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower income taxpayers.”

The study goes on to say that

Absent any base broadening, the proposed reductions in individual and estate taxes specified in Governor Romney’s plan would decrease federal tax revenues by $360 billion in 2015. These tax cuts predominantly favor upper-income taxpayers: Taxpayers with incomes over $1 million would see their after-tax income increased by 8.3 percent (an average tax cut of about $175,000), taxpayers with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 would see somewhat smaller increases of about 2.4 percent (an average tax cut of $1,800), while the after-tax income of taxpayers earning less than $30,000 would actually decrease by about 0.9 percent (an average tax increase of about $130) due to the expiration of the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2009 and extended at the end of 2010.

Romney’s Florida Communications Directer, Jeff Bechdel, said that, “This is just another biased study from a former Obama staffer that ignores critical parts of Governor Romney’s tax reform program, which will help the middle class and promote faster economic growth.” Romney’s campaign also called the study biased and “a joke.”

The study in its entirety shows quite otherwise, giving a detailed explanation of the claims made.

Not only that, but the accusation of bias is quite false as well. The Tax Policy Center features experts from the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton administrations, making it obvious that they are serious in their goal of non-partisanship. In fact, while one of the three authors (Samuel Brown, William Gale, and Adam Looney) has indeed worked as a senior economist for resident Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, another author and the director of the TPC, was a principal on George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Another expert, economist and Nobel Laureate weighed in and said that while Obama’s tax plan is suffering from inadequacies, “Romney is intensely, screamingly irresponsible,” and “is proposing to cut revenue by around $450 billion a year compared with current policy.”

Military cuts, by the way, are expressly forbidden in Romney’s tax plan.