Whoa, Where’s the Benefit?

So I was viewing this morning’s politics talking head shows as is my usual Sunday morning routine, and watching the Romney apologists spell out, for the umpteenth time what it is that Romney truly plans in his tax cut plan should he become president.

 

And they were pooh-poohing the claims by the non-partisan Fact-Check.org think tank, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, that in order to make up for the tax cuts for the very rich in this country, Romney would have to raise the taxes on the middle class.

He would have no other way to pay for the tax cut, they say.

Baloney said the pundits. Mitt Romney has all of this already handled in other tweaks to his tax plan where the rich will have fewer deductions by eliminating some, and lowering others.

It should all come out the same in the wash these people said.

But it was like this was the first time I was hearing this clearly. Whoa, I said to myself, what is the net benefit then? If the goal is to decrease the tax burden on the rich so that they would hire more people and expand the economy – which is The Plan – where is the net tax savings? Where do the rich get to have more money? If Romney makes the tax cuts for the rich deficit neutral by paying for it with reductions in other areas, doesn’t that mean that there is a zero sum change for the rich?

Where’s the benefit in that?

My guess is that there is a zero sum change for the rich, but a huge change for the middle class. The eliminations of deductions for the rich will also go for the middle class, however the middle class will not have tax rate reductions to offset them.

It was like scales fell from my eyes. Mitt Romney and his spinners are all telling the truth in plain view. Why would anyone vote for Mitt Romney for a zero sum change in their taxes? It makes no sense and now I see why the whole thing is being argued.

Hey presto, it’s a shell game. Now you see it now you don’t. The middle class has fallen for that game for decades. For centuries.