(Jim Young/Reuters)
Now we have our
first signs of wobble:
Romney supported the status quo when running for president last time around, saying the following in an interview with TechCrunch:
With regard to carried interest associated with venture capital, real estate, private equity, I do not believe in raising taxes. And it is a capital gain because those individuals do make an investment, it's a small investment, but they make an investment of their own capital and I would treat capital gains as capital gains instead of trying to re-categorize them as normal income.
That was Mitt Romney in 2007, explicitly making it clear that he was directly opposed to closing the carried-interest loophole.
Que 2012:
But during a media call earlier this morning, the Romney campaign would not reaffirm that position. When asked if Romney still believes carried interest should be taxed as a capital gain -- a yes/no sort of question -- his representatives became unartful dodgers.
...
So I followed up, asking if Romney could indeed support a change to carry tax if part of a comprehensive package. Rather than answering, the campaign moved on to the next questioner.
It's bizarre. This is an issue Romney addressed directly five years ago, but today it's apparently some sort of trap question that must be deflected.
What happened to the defense of capitalism? What happened to capitalism being on trial? What happened to people trying to divide america?
The Romney Campaign knows this is going to hurt, they are going to be forced off the carried-interest loophole, but they can't do it in the primary lest they upset the establishment. They also know the "class warfare/defend capitalism" argument just isn't working.