Last night I had another uncomfortable experience with a flim flam man. Only this time I caught him in the act. My previous experience with a flim flam man occurred in 2006 when I bought a new car. The salesman was very personable, spent much time gaining our trust before he closed the deal. The only thing that seemed amiss happened when we went to pick up the car. He stood in one spot next to the driver's door while we walked around the car. It turned out he was hiding a crimp in the door, damage that occurred in transit or at the dealership. A defect allowed the door to be extended too far -- so far that the front edge of the door ran into the hinge crimping a quarter inch wide strip like an accordion. Because he hid the defect with his body, we picked up the car and only noticed the damage when we got home. This is a flim flam man. A trickster. And last night I saw another.
Romney was asked about his plans for deductions. The flim flam man responded with a carefully crafted speech that made it appear he said one thing but meant another.
Now, how about deductions? 'Cause I'm going to bring rates down
across the board for everybody, but I'm going to limit deductions and
exemptions and credits, particularly for people at the high end,
because I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than
they're paying now.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of
the income tax the nation collects. So that'll stay the same.
That first part made it clear the people "at the high end" were not going to get a tax break -- until he explained it with
"The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of the income tax the nation collects."
and he repeated it again:
And I will not - I will not under any circumstances, reduce the
share that's being paid by the highest income taxpayers.
So it's there right in front of you, like a shiny new car, waiting to be embraced. But here's the thing. If "the high end" are going to continue to pay the same share, if the middle class gets a tax cut, the "high end" will too. Otherwise their share would go up and the flim flam man has never said they would pay a greater share. In concrete terms, if the middle class gets a 20% tax break, Mitt's tax rate would have to go from 14% to 11% if his share is to remain the same. And as
another recommended diary has pointed out, his target is even lower. The only way to lower Mitt's taxes would be to lower the capital gains rate -- which he plans to eliminate.