Obama needs to finally hit back hard on taxes. This is what I'd do if I was him in the debate.
"Look, what we have here is an important choice when it comes to taxes and our economy. Let's look at the governor's plan. He said he wants to cut marginal rates across the board by 20%, repeal the AMT and estate taxes among others. All of this is worth $5 trillion over 10 years. To pay for this, he is claiming he will reduce deductions on the wealthy.
But there's a problem here. A big problem. There aren't $5 trillion worth of deductions on the wealthy. That's simply a fact. And the Governor claims there are 6 studies that back him up, but that too is not true. A few of those studies are blogs and op-eds by members of his own economic team. Another completely ignores half of his tax plan. There's one study that tries to make his case but it says two things must be true for his tax plan to work.
The first it says is that it must have enormous growth in the economy to work, growth that we've never seen from tax cuts. The second thing it tells us is that he must raise taxes on people and small businesses the governor has promised not to remove deductions from. The study says it must raise taxes on those the Governor calls middle class. This is simply a fact. He may claim otherwise, but everyone can read this study and see that it does in fact say he must.
Now, this is why this is so important. 12 years ago we were given 3 promises. These promises were large tax cuts that mostly went to the wealthy, unfounded economic growth, and laxing of regulation. And we did all three of those things. And the result was a tax cut that doubled our debt and took us from surpluses to deficits and left my administration with over one trillion in deficit before I stepped foot into office. It left us with the weakest economic growth, investment growth, and job growth of the post WWII era. It left us with a financial disaster that cratered the economy, wiped out the wealth of the middle class, and pushed us to the brink that only our American resolve could withstand.
Now today on this stage the Governor is promising 3 things. A large tax cut that mostly goes to the wealthy, unfounded economic growth, and a laxing of regulation. The governor stands here claiming these are new ideas. But make no mistake, these are not new ideas. These are the exact same idea of the Bush administration that created the mess we're in. These are the same promises of the Bush administration that failed to live up to those promises. Most of the governor's economic policy team are made of of former Bush economic advisers.
And that's a large part of what this election is about. Are the American people going to take a doubling down of the Bush Economic policy as serious? because I don't believe this is a serious solution to serious problems. And what we need right now are serious solutions to these problems, not old and tired solutions that created more problems than answers.
Now, what I've put forth are serious solutions. A jobs bill that would help build up our infrastructure for our eroding roads and bridges and our failing pipelines. A veteran's job bill to help our brave service men and women as they come home. A deficit reduction plan of $4 trillion over 10 years. Asking those who are very well off to pay the same rates they paid during the successful Clinton years before the Bush Economic policies wiped out all our gains so to help all Americans as we are on the road to recover. These are ideas that will push us forward, not backward. That will stimulate growth and reduce of debt payments.
And one last point I'd like to make. The Governor made over $20 million last year according to his taxes but paid just 14% in total federal taxes. That is less than many middle class families pay right now. Middle class families that are struggling and yet pay more in taxes than someone who earned $20 million. When pressed about this on 60 minutes, the Governor said he thought this was fair. That is was fair for him to pay less than you. Under Congressman Ryan's proposal in the House, the governor would have paid less than 1% in federal taxes last year, a proposal the Governor supported. But today he is on this stage claiming he will make sure to close deductions for the very wealthy like himself. He won't tell us which deductions he'd cut, not a single one, but we should trust him, that he'll work it out with Congress.
Now, this is the choice we have to make. Are we going to entrust our tax policy to the Governor who claims he will cut deductions that he has abused for years? Who has stored his money in off-shore accounts? Who supported a plan just last year that would reduce his total federal taxes to 1%? Who supports repeated the exact same played out economic policy of the Bush Administration that put us in this hole?
Are we going to take his plans seriously or are we going to actually move forward as a nation?"
BOOM, HEADSHOT. game over election over. SOMEONE GET OBAMA THIS PLEASE.
