Tax Admission

CORE MESSAGE

As Mitt Romney said, President Obama did not raise your taxes. Will Romney now admit that he will?

Connect: Once in a while, even the shiftiest politicians let down their guard and let the truth slip by.

Define: As Mitt Romney finally admitted, President Obama "has one thing he did not do in his first four years" -- "raise taxes."

Contrast: Romney is the one with a plan to raise taxes on the entire middle class – including half of America he insulted as irresponsible victims.

Illustrate: Romney's tax plan would make a middle-class family pay $2,000 MORE so a millionaire can pay $250,000 LESS.

Explain: Obamacare also has a free rider fee that Romney called a "penalty" when he did it but a "tax" when Obama did it. But now Romney has finally cleared it up for us: it’s not a tax.

Debunk: In fact, taxes are near historical lows for everyone -- especially for the richest few who are richer than ever while working people are scraping by. We need leaders who want to change that, not make the rigged tax code worse.

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ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

MITT ROMNEY: "My low tax rate is fair because a low capital gains tax rate encourages economic growth and helps avoid double taxation."
RESPONSE:

• Mitt Romney is actually arguing it's fair for a guy who banked $14 million last year to pay lower taxes than a middle class family. He saved over $1 million last year thanks to the historically low capital gains tax rate we have now -- and then stashed it overseas.
• It's ridiculous to say cutting taxes for rich people creates jobs. Tax cuts for the wealthy don't help our economy grow -- and that's something that both nonpartisan research and any American still pounding the pavement for a job could tell you.
• Romney has real nerve trotting out the "double taxation" excuse when his own capital gains income was never taxed before it appeared in his bank accounts -- and that's the usual case when it comes to capital gains, or money made from money.
• Even President Reagan thought that income from wealth and income from working in a job should be taxed the same. But as people who knew Reagan have said, Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

For a full rundown of what Mitt Romney's 2011 tax return shows and doesn't show, please click here: Romney's Glass House.

• President Obama has signed 18 tax cuts for small businesses into law and has cut taxes for middle-class families every year he has been in office, by an average of $3,600 over the past four years.
• Romney's tax plan would raise taxes on 95% of Americans, including the entire middle class, making the average middle class family pay $2,000 more -- while giving a millionaire another tax cut of nearly $250,000.
• Romney's Republican allies in Congress have been working all year to make sure nearly 120 million middle-class families see their taxes go up by an average of $1,600.
• Here's a full list of the tax provisions in the Affordable Care Act. In other words, Obamacare was a massive tax CUT, with tax credits worth about $4,000 each to 18 million American families so they can afford coverage.
• So repealing Obamacare would be actual massive tax increase, something Republicans in Congress have voted repeatedly to do.
• Federal tax rates in America are at historic lows, including those for middle-class families, and the U.S. ranks almost last among modern nations in the amount taxpayers pay as a share of our national economy.

 
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