Mitt Romney Takes Some Tax Deductions Off the Table

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I see that Wolf Blitzer almost managed to get a straight answer out of Mitt Romney a couple of days ago about which deductions he’d eliminate to make up for the $5 trillion in across-the-board tax rate cuts that he’s promised. Or, rather, he almost managed to get Romney to take a couple of deductions off the table. “Let’s go through how you would do that,” Blitzer said. “Specifically, home mortgage deductions, charitable contributions. Are you ready to remove those?” Romney filibustered for a bit and then said:

With regards to the deductions you describe, home mortgage interest deduction and charitable contributions, there will of course continue to be preferences for those types of expenses.

Hmmm. “Preferences” is still a bit weasel wordy, but it sure sounds like he’s promising not to touch those items. In other words, he’s making his promise of revenue neutrality ever more ridiculous with every passing day. All that’s left is for someone to ask him whether he’s willing to start taxing healthcare benefits. If he says no, that would pretty much take off the table every single tax expenditure of any serious size. There’s just nothing left to balance out his rate cuts for millionaires.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate