President Obama thought that his go-to punch during the debate was a study by the a non-partisan research group that “proved” that Romney’s tax plan “didn’t add up” and would result in middle class tax increases and cuts to Autistic kids’ healthcare.
Since Romney boldly rejected that shot during the debate, Team Obama has been running around with their hair on fire, screaming that Romney lied when he said his plan’s numbers tied together.
Well, for openers, the non-partisan research group is the left-leaning Tax Policy Center … and one of the economists used to work on the Obama campaign.
Hmmm.
More important, the assertion that Mitt’s plan is out-of-whack is based on a paper written by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen.
Prof. Rosen has stepped forward to say that’s not true.
Prof. Rosen told the Weekly Standard that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney’s tax plan
Specifically, Prof. Rosen said:
I can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work.
It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal.
The main conclusion of my study is that under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same.
That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral.
You can check the math that shows Romney’s plan is mathematically possible … and, shows that the only hurdle is repealing ObamaVare and its tax hikes … an action that’s high on Romney’s to do list.
Bottom line: Seems that Team Obama may be lying when it says that Romney is lying … at least about his tax plan.
The Homa Files 