Romney’s "revenue neutral" 20% rate cut may not be achievable, Hassett admits

Lifted from Linda Beale’s:

Romney’s “revenue neutral” 20% rate cut may not be achievable, Hassett admits

…For months, many tax experts have been saying that even what is known about Romney’s plan–skimpy as it is on any real information–shows that it is unworkable.  One of Romney’s sometimes advisers finally sort of acknowledged that.  Kevin Hassett (an American Enterprise Institute propaganda tank “expert” who coughs out Friedmania economic assumptions as though they were clearly settled laws of nature) admits that unless there is a “broadening of the tax base” Romney couldn’t reduce rates by 20% across the board in a revenue-neutral way.

Now, “broadening of the tax base” in connection with reduced rates was possible back inn 1986 when we had maximum rates much higher than today.  But most broadening that should be done won’t be done, because there is no political will for it in Washington either because Romney won’t favor it or because the Tea Party crazies won’t.  (We won’t be eliminating the capital gains preference under a Romney administration, for example, or eliminating the tax subsidies that we give to Big Oil and other extractive industries that make oilmen billionaires–like letting them get the “domestic manufacturing deduction”, which they currently are able to use to reduce their US taxes even more.)  Hassett admitted that “if you think the base broadeners don’t add up, if you think that he can’t get [top rates down] to 28%, well then the right thing that would happen, as you know if you’re going to have revenue neutral reform, is that they would have a different change in rates.”  BNA Daily Tax RealTime (Sept 24, 2012 at 7:19 pm)….