Posted on 01/18/2008 5:08:54 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Romney proposes $250 bln economic stimulus package Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:33pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Weighing in on a debate about stimulating the slowing U.S. economy, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney called on Friday for a package of tax breaks expected to cost $250 billion, according to a report by the CNBC business TV channel.
The former Massachusetts governor's package, CNBC said, centered on several permanent tax cuts, rather than temporary rebates and spending programs favored by others engaged in the stimulus discussion in Washington and on the campaign trail.
Romney plans to propose permanently reducing the rate for the lowest income tax bracket to 7.5 percent from 10 percent, retroactive to 2007, eliminating Social Security payroll taxes for workers over 65 and eliminating capital gains and dividend taxes on households earning under $200,000 a year, CNBC said on its Web site.
He would also permanently reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent over two years and allow businesses to depreciate the value of new equipment purchases faster.
CNBC said an aide to Romney pegged the total cost of his package at about $250 billion.
President George W. Bush earlier on Friday called on Congress to enact a package of temporary tax cuts and other measures estimated to cost up to $150 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
They were uttered by Mitt Romney. That's all the "indication" I need.
Take EV at his word wrt Mitt’s religion. Some have that hidden agenda, but EV’s agenda is upfront.
It’s Mitt’s failure to meet EV’s social conservative litmus tests that make him oppose Romney, as far as I can tell from my many run-ins with him. He’s been as harsh on Thompson at times.
I cant even imagine what he’ll say about this latest Huckster revelation - et tu Mikey:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1956057/posts?page=10
Good point. I do not know enough about Romney to know if he is genuine or not, but some of the leading conservative pundits have endorsed him as a fiscal conservative (including National Review). That makes me think he is more likely to actually be genuine than Hillary, who is a known liberal and would certainly be lying if she promised tax cuts.
Someone at Redstate’s been reading my posts. ;-)
I called Huckabee on those particular flipflops many weeks ago. Others are just now catching up.
“How much proposed tax cutting would it take for Hillary to buy your vote?”
Since Hillary is pretty much trying to out-abort Mr Barack Obama of kill-the-infant-alive-bill fame right now, it would have to take a promise to abolish the IRS and the income taxes personal and corporate, repeal the 16th amendment, eliminate the entire Federal bureaucracy and place a constitutional limit of 4% of GDP on the Federal govt spending, to get me to consider her.
... oh and announce Keyes as her running mate. That’s for you, EV. :-)
Romney was a hardcore liberal his entire adult life, until he figured out he needed conservative votes to run for president. I fail to understand how any thinking person believes a word he says, in light of that fact.
Good night.
If that is true, why does the National Review and several other conservative experts, including Rush, say he is conservative. Has he got them all fooled? I doubt it. I think you are more likely to be wrong. I actually prefer Fred Thompson from what little I know about the candidates. At this point, I mainly know who I do not like, which are McCain and Huckabee. They are not conservative with tax policy.
http://www.atr.org/content/pdf/2008/Prez%20Tax%20Matrix_3ed.pdf
Someone blogged about it, I just can’t remember where I read it.
Looking it up I see Romney pledged 20 billion over 5 years, not 20 billion a year for 5 years. I think the blogger got it wrong so that makes me wrong.
Oopsie.
In EV’s defense, he has very fastidiously stayed away from the religious angle. His disdain of Romney is based on policy.
You’re right that there are some anti-Romney zealots whose opposition is based on his Mormonism; EternalVigilance is not one of them.
“Someone blogged about it, I just can’t remember where I read it.”
That doesnt make it *true*. More specifically, the main way he wants to help is get Washington off their backs. ARomney is not in favor of a bailout at all the money mentioned is for energy research, not industrial policy. That’s not a giveaway, but is instead innovation R&D, which we already spend quite a bit on - this would focus it.
I found his Detroit economic forum speech about as Reagan-like speech as we’ve heard this season...
worth a read...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/romney_to_the_detroit_economic.html
“And as part of this, we will directly address and rectify the enormous product cost and capital cost disadvantages that currently burden the domestic automakers. From legacy costs, to health care costs, to increased CAFE standard costs, to the cost of embedded taxes, Detroit can only thrive if Washington is an engaged partner, not a disinterested observer. The plan is going to have to include increases in funding for automotive related research as well as new tax benefits including making the Research and Development Tax Credit permanent.
“I am not open to a bail out, but I am open to a work out. Washington should not be a benefactor, but it can and must be a partner.
“But that’s only one step. Washington also has to stop loading Detroit down with unfunded mandates. Of course, we all want fuel mileage to rise, but discontinuous CAFE leaps, uncoordinated with the domestic manufacturers, and absent consideration of competitiveness, kills jobs and imperils the entire industry. Washington dictated CAFE is not the right answer.
“We also have to stop Washington politicians from imposing enormous unilateral energy costs on American manufacturing, including automotive manufacturing. For example, the McCain-Lieberman bill pending in Congress unilaterally imposes new high energy costs on U.S. manufacturers, with no safety valve. The Energy Information Agency estimated that this bill would raise electric rates by as much as 25% and gasoline by as much as 68 cents a gallon. And their estimate of the cost in U.S. jobs — 300,000 jobs. So it’s not just a job killer, it would also make it harder for families to make their ends meet.
“Now of course we have to tackle the threat of climate change. But we don’t call it America warming, we call it global warming. Placing caps and taxes on the U.S. alone just drives manufacturers to China and India, and does little more than make Washington politicians feel welcome at the embassy cocktail parties.
“Next, and you’ve heard this before, there is more healthcare cost in an automobile than steel costs. We got healthcare insurance premiums down in my state and we got everyone on track to be insured. We will work to do the same here and for the rest of the nation.
“And then a final burden, it’s time to fix the tax code. Corporations, like individuals, need lower and simpler taxes. Embedded taxes put our products at a disadvantage in our home market and wherever they compete around the world. When we send for example, a Ford Mustang overseas, it’s not just loaded with accessories. It’s loaded with our excessive healthcare costs, our excessive regulatory burdens, our excessive legal liability burden, and the taxes paid by every single automotive supplier to help put product into that car. You take off those burdens and let’s show them how fast a Mustang will actually go.” - Mitt Romney
And they all took it from the Reagan playbook. That doesn’t matter. What matters is making it happen.
Did you even read the article ? Romney’s plan isn’t giving money away to anybody. His plan is to reduce the tax rates, so people don’t get back more than they actually paid in taxes.
I like that a heck of a lot better than Bush or Shumer’s plans to send people money and foodstamps.
Which is why the best ‘stimulus plan’ would be to eliminate Corporate income taxes. Completely. You’d eliminate not just the 3% of GDP corporations actually remit in taxes, but another 3% that is overhead for compliance costs.
Business would boom, investment would rush in, American producers would have a 6% edge to compete abroad, and employment would go up. The additional Individual income taxes would more than make up for the loss in Corporate income taxes.
There are probably some corporations that pay no tax at all by locating off-shore. I doubt they created jobs.
So removing some of the incentive to move offshore, by eliminating the corporate tax here would be a good thing, right ?
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