Quote of the Day: Romney Still Not Making Sense on Taxes

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From Mitt Romney, explaining his tax plan:

So number one, [] don’t raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don’t reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today.

Hold on. The top 5% will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But that means the bottom 95% will also pay the same share they pay today. Right? That’s just arithmetic.

So everyone will pay the same share of taxes they pay today. But we’re going to lower taxes on the bottom 95%. So that means we have to lower taxes on the top 5% too. That’s the only way to keep their shares the same.

In other words, Romney is going to lower everyone’s taxes. Not just tax rates, actual taxes. And yet, his plan is going to be revenue neutral. How? Most likely it has something to do with Romney’s tax cuts creating new incentives that will supercharge the economy blah blah blah.

I guess believers gotta believe, but if you believe a word of this, you’re the kind of mark who’d still fall for the wire scam even after seeing The Sting a dozen times on late-night cable. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.  After all, it’s been less than ten years since George W. Bush ran the same swindle, and we all remember how that panned out, don’t we?

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

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2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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