Obama-Romney: Tax fog, clarity little
For an event so freighted with expectations of tax insights, the Obama-Romney debate on Wednesday offered few clues on what the candidates' tax plans could mean for average Americans.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney stuck to his strategy of promising tax cuts. To pay for this, he pledged again to close yet-to-be-named tax loopholes. And he said new tax revenues would come from economic growth spurred by lower taxes.
President Barack Obama reiterated his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, to close or cap specific loopholes, and to use the tax code to boost alternative energy and domestic manufacturing.
Neither candidate veered from these long-standing positions, though both cited plenty of numbers in the Denver debate. Romney blurred the few tax specifics he had previously provided by throwing out new numbers on capping deductions.
Taxes are a big issue in any election, but this year they are at the heart of the urgent deficit problem and the gridlock in Congress over the size and role of the federal government. On the campaign trail, the candidates have seldom risen above carefully scripted rhetoric. The debate was not much different.
A lot of time was spent talking about taxes, and yet I don't know that a whole lot new was really said, said Alan Viard, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
On four occasions in the debate, Obama, a Democrat, said Romney plans to cut taxes by $5 trillion. Each time, the former Massachusetts governor replied that he has no such
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