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Paul Ryan runs out of time

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And running room.

Chris Wallace – Chris Wallace!- nails Ryan on the fuzzy math of his tax plan.

Ryan’s response: “I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math.”

So the only remaining question is whether the moderator of the VP debate has as much integrity as a Fox News anchor.

Footnote Looks as if even Fox has decided to put a little pre-emptive distance between itself and the Romney train wreck.

Comments

  2. I think Murdoch just has the same question many of us have: “given that what you propose is impossible, what will you actually do? What is the order of priorities re a) rate cutting, b) deduction cutting, c) revenue neutrality?” There’s no point in your guy winning if you don’t know what he’s going to do.

  3. Mark, It appears that Mitt Romney mislead the voters, and mislead “60 Minutes” Scott Pelley. Mitt implied that his own income had already been taxed at 35%, and therefore the 14% rate he paid to the IRS was justified. Except, didn’t Mitt’s invested wealth initially pass to him through a partnership arrangement where it was NOT first taxed at 35%?

    I believe FAIR or somebody has caught this lie, but I don’t see it being reported around. Big, Big lie from Mitt.

    From http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/09/24/895971/millionaire-romney-its-fair-for-me-to-pay-lower-taxes-than-middle-class-americans/?mobile=nc

    “SCOTT PELLEY (HOST): Now, you made on your investments, personally, about $20 million last year. And you paid 14 percent in federal taxes. That’s the capital gains rate. Is that fair to the guy who makes $50,000 and paid a higher rate than you did?
    ROMNEY: It is a low rate. And one of the reasons why the capital gains tax rate is lower is because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level, as high as 35 percent.
    PELLEY: So you think it is fair?
    ROMNEY: Yeah, I think it’s the right way to encourage economic growth, to get people to invest, to start businesses, to put people to work.”

    • He’s confusing dividends with capital gains. A beneficial tax rate on dividend income can be justified (and is, in Canada, for dividends from Canadian companies) because the companies have paid taxes on their income and dividends are paid from after-tax income. But this is not true of capital gains, at least those produced by selling stocks for more than you paid for them – which has nothing to do with the company’s tax position.

      Whether the same is true for the artificial statute-created equivalent-to-capital-gains treatment of Mr Romney’s income from Bain, I don’t know, but it’s not obvious.

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