If the Tax Policy Center Study is a Joke Where's Romney's Own Study?

      This is really getting good. Romney's whole strategy was just to come out here and, like Wall Street Journal noted, just say 'the economy stinks and it's all the President's fault.' This strategy has not worked. Even with continued tough economic news, the country doesn't blame President Obama for the mess he inherited and Romney hasn't told us anything about how he'd do a better job.

      It's a secret. Just like his own personal taxes-assuming he has paid any-he's not going to tell us anything about what his policies might be. While some of criticized the President's campaign for playing "small ball" and talking about tangential personal issues, this is Mitt Romney's own fault. He hasn't put forward any substantive proposals and came in wanting to run on his biography. Yet this very biography-of Bain, not Massachusetts which he never wanted to talk about-has become a liability, so much so that he now has hired someone-an executive from the fiendish Fannie and Freddie no less, to defend his Bain record.

    However, this recent study by the Tax Policy Center yesterday has really pushed Romney against the wall, again. It's fascinating how often Romney has found himself the victim of some bad checks lately.

   The question over his tax returns leaves him in a double bind whereby his only two choices are to either stonewall-his chosen strategy so far-or to release his taxes.

   Here again, he's in the classic double bind. He has made a big fuss about how this study is a joke. However, this claim is about as empty as his claim that he never had a year that he paid no taxes at all in. As he won't release his taxes, it's just an episode of He Said-She Said. Talk is cheap.

   So now he's checked in a way where he either has to do what he didn't want, and release some specifics about his own tax plan, or have a new issue that will flag him for the rest of the campaign.

    "A new study describing Mitt Romney’s tax cut proposals as an average tax increase for 95% of Americans is “a joke,” according to Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom. But policy aides offered no indication they plan to offer more details on Romney’s plan in order to clarify how it would be paid for and what they assumed its effects would be."

     "The Romney camp has decried the report by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center as “biased,” suggesting that their own expectations are that an explosion of economic growth thanks to their policies will make up any revenue gaps in the plan that indicate it will be a drag on middle class Americans."

     "But asked on a conference call whether the Romney campaign would offer up any more details on how they believe their plan would work instead, policy adviser Jonathan Burks demurred, saying it would be up to Congress to help fill in the blanks."

    “The governor’s plan essentially lays out the parameters that he wants to achieve: lowering the tax rate by 20 percent, achieving revenue neutrality, and maintaining progressivity and within that he would write a tax plan that achieves those goals,” he said. “So, it’s not a question of ‘today we have a 2000 page tax plan that could be scored.’”

     "Working within the broad goals Burks outlined, the Tax Policy Center concluded there simply was no way to keep Romney’s plan “progressive” and “revenue neutral” without majorly reducing tax deductions that benefit the vast majority of Americans. They added that this held true even if they took Romney’s word and imagined that his plan would spark higher growth than expected."

     "Kevin Hassett, another adviser, said the campaign assumed the Romney plan would be a net gain for the middle class because it would create “5 to 10 million” jobs, but again offered no new information as to how the Romney campaign arrived at its number and what percentage of their plan they expect to be paid for by a hypothetical Romney boom."

     http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-tax-policy-center-study-joke.php?ref=fpa

     It will create 5 to 10 million jobs huh? That's the lowball estimate. Glen Hubbard in the Wall Street Journal editorial page  was claiming 12 million in Romney's first term. If that's so that would bury what Bush did in 8 years. Though his plan is actually the Bush Plan 2.0.

     No one can say the Obama team isn't on top of this:

     "The Obama campaign has made the study a centerpiece of their campaign this week, with President Obama highlighting it in a speech within hours of its release. On Thursday morning, they revealed a new television ad based on the report and debuted a new “tax calculator” on their website in which users can see how much more in taxes they’d pay under Romney based on the Tax Policy Center’s conclusions."