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The response is: He plans to cut rates across the board, and cap deductions — he talked about an aggregate cap on deductions, not eliminating deductions. Many in the middle class, esp. in the lower middle class, will not be affected by the cap on deductions, but will still see their rates, and thus their taxes drop. The cap on deductions will mostly prevent upper income earners from shielding their income from taxation.

As an aside, I’d prefer a more radical version of Romney’s idea: a cap on the amount of personal income excluded from taxation at the normal rates by any means (though obviously business expenses would remain fully deductible, since only the profit, not the revenue is actually income and I’d leave charitable contributions uncapped — we need to support the civil society, the ‘space between government and the individual’), I’d apply the cap to the total amount of deductions (other than charitable contributions and business expenses), plus tax exempt income, plus the amount of tax credits divided by the taxpayer’s marginal rate, plus the amount effectively shielded from taxation by favorable lower tax rates on classes of income (I don’t feel like working out the formula this morning).