The most inept and incoherent presidential campaign in history continues to shoot itself in the foot as Romney economic adviser Emil Henry admitted that the Romney tax plan redistributes wealth.
Here’s the video from Up With Chris Hayes:
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HAYES: the other thing I want to ask about is the redistribution thing. The president believes in it, Mitt Romney doesn’t. If that’s the case, why not advocate a flat tax ? If romney doesn’t believe in redistribution, he’s got the wrong tax plan. real belief would be at the very least a flat tax. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have the courage to go out there and advocate for a nonredistributive tax plan.
HENRY: Actually, if you look at his tax plan closely, it’s about as close to a flat tax plan as has existed since the Reagan years. What he’s done is he — and what he was advocating for is a highly simplified plan. The tax code , by the way, is 70,000 pages. 70,000. you know why it’s 70,000 pages? For the last multiple decades, politicians have sold for donations have sold exemptions to the code. Let’s simplify it. We can come to that one. let’s simplify it. let’s lower marginal rates and get rid of, not all, but most of the agregregious exemptions and taxes on the middle class will go down. and no — I have heard him say this 100 times and i know this for a fact, he says taxes on rich folks are not going to go down because of the elimination of exemptions. the more people hear about this –
HAYES: That’s intention with the nonredistributed thing. taxes on wealthy people have to go down. If he doesn’t believe in that, he has to reduce the burden of wealthy people. we have a barely, but progressive income tax . If he doesn’t believe in redistribution, he has to cut it for the wealthy. it’s not the case he is flattening the tax code and not lowering them for rich people.
HENRY: Your point — if your making — Chris, I always like talking with you. you think outside the box. If your point is that a progressive tax code, which is what the United States of America has and it’s the right thing, and it’s about fairness and fairness of opportunity, your point is there’s a technical element of redistribution by virtue of hiring –
HAYES: Not just technical — that’s redistribution. You are paying for it!
HENRY: Let’s be real about it. Let’s be real about this. when President Obama talks about redistribution, Chris, you know this is true, when he talks about redistribution, he is talking about a massive difference from the Romney plan, which is about simpler, lower marginal rates , getting rid of exemptions and lowering the corporate tax rate to attract business in America.
The Romney campaign’s argument is that when President Obama talks about cutting taxes for ninety eight percent of America, that’s redistribution. What Romney is proposing is tax fairness for the wealthy. When taxes are cut for the rich, that’s not redistribution. It’s fairness. Any sort of aid or cuts for everyone else is evil, Commie, socialist redistribution.
Emil Henry’s answer was based on the ideological concept, which we now know that Romney holds near and dear to his heart, that the wealthy are overtaxed. When pushed, Henry had to admit that technically the Romney plan is redistribution, because there is no technically about it. It is redistribution. Romney wants to shift the tax burden from the top down. He wants to place more of the tax burden on the middle class and poor. He wants to take the little bit of wealth at the bottom and shift it to the top.
That’s the Romney plan.
The Romney campaign decides to respond to their candidate’s 47% comments by claiming Obama is in favor of redistribution. This lasts for less than a week thanks to Romney’s own economic adviser admitting that their tax plan also redistributes wealth. Boom, the redistribution attack has been blown to bits by the campaign itself.
The Romney campaign is revealing itself to be one of the most inept runs for the presidency in American history.
How do they expect to win with beliefs like redistribution is for the wealthy only?
The redistribution lie about Obama didn’t work, and now under the slightest bit of questioning, the Romney campaign is cracking and letting their true objectives slip. The Romney camp can’t put out a unified message, and they look like a campaign that is in complete disarray.
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Shannon Meadows
Sep. 23rd, 2012 at 12:43 pm
The GOP plan to win this election based on the selfishness and/or bigotry of the under-educated, the right-winged-brainwashed, and the very wealthy, most of whom are afraid that “something” will be taken from them (money, religion liberty, guns, etc.) if Obama wins re-election. The GOP cannot run successfully on the issues, even the struggling economy, so they spread lies and foment fear among the gullible and paranoid. Baseless accusations of Obama as a non-citizen anti-Christian Muslim socialist baby-killer feed the ignorance and fear pervasive in the GOP party base.
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Roger Tafel
Sep. 23rd, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Saw Emil Henry on Up with Chris Hayes this morn. My God, what an arrogant man. He could not cover up his obvious distaste for all things “in the middle” or lower. What a shame, but obviously perfect for the faltering campaign of one overly privileged Mitt Romney.
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harris stein
Sep. 23rd, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Romney-Ryan are taking pages from the Reagan playbook just as President Obama is taking pages from the Clinton playbook. The difference today is that the Reagan “voodoo” economics of top down growth and “starve the beast” fiscal policy has been thoroughly debunked while the Clinton fiscal policy of matching revenue to spending which may mean small to modrate tax increases was actually something Reagan favored.
Paul Ryan is so transparent in his starve the beast fiscal policy that Romney has to write off almost half of the electorate in order to appear capable of managing the national economy. The problem obviously isn’t that half the electorate are moochers, the real problem is that 1 to 2 percent of the electorate are parasitic vampires sucking off the 98 to 99 percent who live on the edge. Romney-Ryan’s constituency is that 1 to 2 percent. The strange bedfellows of the tea party republicans most of whom are part of the 98 percent, and the 1 to 2 percent parasitic vampires has happened before. After the American Civil War during what was called “the gilded age,” poor immigrants, farmers and native working class people sided with ultra wealthy business executives and investors to reelect republicans again and again. Eventually it took a progressive republican, Teddy Roosevelt to break up the corporate empire that strangled growth. The corruption of corporate empires especially in Europe was one of the factors which led to World War 1.
We are obviously seeing a repeat of this today. The danger of course is that the military industrial complex has the most hideous weapons ever invented in nuclear weapons and they are brandished on a hair trigger.
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Rmuse
Sep. 23rd, 2012 at 3:40 pm
The Romney campaign, whether they do it deliberately to appeal to wealthy donors or their ignorant base, has articulated their intentions from the beginning. No-one should be surprised at anything other than their audacity to tell exactly what they feel about 98% of this country.
It is a truly sad commentary the these fascists are allowed to telegraph their intentions to rule by plutocracy and theocracy and still have any support whatsoever. My colleagues around the world cannot believe how America has devolved into a nation of stupid bigots following a group of oligarchs who promise to decimate them if they get elected, and they cheer like drunken football (soccer) fans at the prospect. It is enough to make one mourn the demise of what was, at one time, an exceptional country.
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ourdad
Sep. 23rd, 2012 at 10:34 pm
I agree with your comment. I think if they get their way on Nov 6 we will see the end of democracy as we know it. My question is could this country survive a dictator? i.e. the 1% ers. These people cant be allowed to buy this election. THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING! !
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