Tax Cuts | featured news

Romney insists his plans would help the middle class; Obama criticizes his rival's lack of specifics. After a week in which Democrats repeatedly attacked his economic plan as beneficial to the rich and devastating to the poor, Republican nominee Mitt Romney insisted Sunday that his tax and budget proposals would help rebuild the middle class in America.

Here is what Romney, so far in this campaign, has said. No changes to any entitlement programs for any seniors for the next 10 years. No specifics on how quickly his Medicare vouchers will grow for future seniors. No specifics on which tax breaks he’ll eliminate in order to offset the multi-trillion dollar cost of his tax cuts. No specific plan naming the cuts he’ll make to reach his $7 trillion target. No specifics on how he’ll equalize tax treatment of employer and individual health care. It is a campaign based on the principle of “not us, not now.”

Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president, says he wants to scuttle the tax breaks of America's rich, but he also proposes expanding one of the biggest breaks enjoyed by the wealthiest - the low tax rate on investment income.

Reassessment of their $12-million home, one of many reductions in San Diego County, has saved $109,000 over four years... Mitt and Ann Romney were easily able to afford a $12-million La Jolla home. But that didn't insulate them from the winds buffeting the real estate market in the months following their purchase in 2008. After paying cash for the Mediterranean-style house with 61 feet of beach frontage, they asked San Diego County for dramatic property tax relief.

President Obama's latest television ad hits Mitt Romney over his tax cut plans, saying they will lead to tax hikes for the middle class.

The House rejected a proposal to allow tax cuts on the wealthy to expire, and instead passed a yearlong extension of current tax rates in an act of political theater.

Economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers write that “the debate in Washington about economic policy is phony. It’s manufactured. And it’s entirely political.” ... Turns out that there’s wide agreement that the stimulus created jobs, TARP was necessary, market factors drive gas prices, tax cuts reduce revenue, tax increases and spending cuts will have to be part of a deficit solution and more.

The Senate narrowly approved legislation on Wednesday to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class but to let them lapse for more affluent households, in a surprise vote intended more to give both parties election-year cover than to produce a new tax law.

Tax cuts that President George W. Bush signed in 2001 and 2003 are playing a major role in the election of 2012. They surface again today as the Democratic-run Senate holds a symbolic debate over President Obama's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts only for middle-class Americans, not for the wealthy.

A standoff with Congress that results in the January expiration of wide-ranging tax cuts would mean 114 million families would see average tax increases of $1,600 next year, the White House says... "So far, the only reason the middle-class tax cuts have not been extended is that Republicans in Congress continue to insist on cutting taxes once again for the wealthiest few," the report said.