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By J. Patrick Coolican (contact) 
Friday, Aug. 3, 2012 | 2 a.m.
J. Patrick Coolican
I can’t make it to this morning’s Mitt Romney event in North Las Vegas, but here are some questions I’m hoping the assembled media will ask him:
1. Your economic plan includes a 20 percent across-the-board cut in marginal tax rates. You’ve promised to increase defense spending and not cut entitlement programs for the elderly. As you know, roughly 60 percent of the federal budget is defense, Social Security, Medicare and interest on the debt. You’ve declined to specify which programs you would cut or which tax deductions and loopholes you would eliminate.
How is it possible that your economic program won’t increase the deficit, as you’ve promised?
2. During the eight years of the presidency of George W. Bush, American incomes declined, poverty increased, the number of Americans without health insurance soared, the federal budget deficit and debt grew, and when he left office, the economy was losing 700,000 jobs per month. Bush’s economic policy was to cut taxes, as he did in 2001 and 2003, and limit new regulations on energy and financial services and other sectors.
Let’s be fair and say Bush can’t be blamed entirely for the financial crisis and that there’s more to the economy than a set of government policies. Still, it seems reasonable to ask: Where did Bush’s policies go wrong? And how are your policies substantially different than his?
3. The Tax Policy Center, which your campaign noted for its “objective, third-party analysis” during the Republican primary campaign, recently released a paper saying your tax plan — cutting marginal income tax rates and paying for it by eliminating deductions and loopholes — would require tax increases on the middle class. The analysis goes like this: Eliminating tax loopholes and deductions and so forth doesn’t produce enough money to pay for the large cost of tax cuts, especially on upper incomes. Your campaign has attacked the analysis for failing to incorporate your own more optimistic economic growth assumptions that you say will come from cutting corporate tax rates, also paid for by reducing loopholes and deductions.
Will you release a more detailed analysis disproving the Tax Policy Center’s conclusion?
4. What would be the consequences, both good and bad, of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities? Please include economic, geo-political and humanitarian consequences.
5. Has the “War on Drugs” been successful? If so, what’s to explain the steady and even increasing use among teenagers of marijuana and prescription drugs for recreational purposes despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent during the past several decades? If it hasn’t been successful, why not and what would you do about it?
6. What has been your effective federal tax rate for each of the past 10 years? You paid an effective rate of 13.9 percent on your 2010 income; if your tax rate was similar in prior years, do you think it’s just and fair that your tax rate has been lower than many middle-class Americans?
P.S. Yes, I’ll have questions for the other guy the next time he’s in town.
Very good questions that every voter should be asking as well.
It is our responsibility to be informed voters, and that means asking questions and expecting answers from the candidates for elective office in both parties.
Well said, Peacelily...
I would PAY to see Coolican sit down with Thurston Howell-Rmoney and ask him these very questions!
Great questions.....I would doubt he would answer them directly and if he did he would not give a strait answer Somthing about his secrecy persona that scares me
Those vehicles they make at that place are used by the GOVERNMENT and on government road projects etc. So the plan is there because of government tax and spend.
It is obvious that Romney did not pay any taxes according to a Bain Investor. 163,000 new jobs, jobs from Obama, Romney sent jobs to Macao and tied his dog to the roof of his car.
"I'll answer those questions when I'm the President!"
I'm sure you could ASK those questions, Mr. Coolican, but it just reminds me of one of Nevada's worst general election candidates in history, Sharron "I'll answer those questions when I'm the Senator!" Angle.
This is a page directly out of her playbook, after all.
I would defer those questions to Nancy Pelosi. Same Answer
I agree. These are good questions.
Additionally, I'm wondering how Ann Romney's horses have been treated for tax purposes. If she's using them to address her medical challenges, are the Romney's deducting any portion of the horse's cost as a medical expense?
@Mfish, Nancy is not running for the Presidency!!!
Good questions but even if they are asked of Mr. Romney, he'll beat around the bush with a bunch of words and in the end, not answer any of them.
@Emma Betscher: Nancy Pelosi is not the one to ask these questions!! Last I heard, she was not the one running for President! Romney is!!
@TEA's answer is to deflect onto another person rather than answer them or even ask for the answer to them.. must work for the Romney campaign since that seems to be their play book..
The current topic is questions for Mr. Romney to answer. A candidate running for public office will have to answer questions and produce private details. It is the nature of the system. Those that don't generally do not get elected because it is perceived they have something to hide or cannot substantiate their claims. It works equally for R's and D's. As Mr. Romney said "Trust me"
Avoiding the press and not answering questions worked so well for Angle, lets see how well it works for Mr. Romney....
BTW.. Calling a liberal a liberal is about as offensive to them as calling a conservative a conservative... so whats your point?
and Myth would reply....mind your own business Coolican
TEA--
1. Obama doesn't have a magic wand, and he can't operate the country on his own. So you simply can't account for the debt increase without blaming someone else. Obama, after all, was hamstrung by an obstinate GOP unwilling to work WITH HIM rather than AGAINST HIM.
2. It may be a one-term prospect after all. Is it his fault? I'd say it's more Mitch McConnell's.
3. Fast and Furious was begun under Bush. That's not blame. That's just making the proper people accountable for what they did.
4. Someone on Bush's team advised against invading Iraq, too. Just because someone advises against something, doesn't mean you don't do it. This is one that blew up in Obama's face. Take the bad with the good.
5. Obama didn't write "Obamacare." It's actually as Republican-influenced as anything else.
6. Semantics. Get over it. It was always a tax, really, but small-minded low-information voters would go ballistic if it was called a tax. But the money you pay for health care in this plan is money you would already be paying anyway, unless you're one of the "invinceables." Well, even the "invinceables" need to be insured, because that's how insurance works. You get the people who don't need it to buy in, and pay out the claims of the people who do need it. Otherwise, you wind up with what we had -- out-of-control insurance costs.
I'm seeing a pattern in all the comments regarding Mitt's taxes. The responses from his supporters mostly consist of lashing out with personal attacks and attempts to change the topic.
Conclusion, their candidate is painted into a corner and they know it.
Romney is a liar and a tax cheat. Put him in jail.
When the time comes for the BIG presidential debate before the general election, I hope you will find a way to submit these questions, Coolican. They are worthy and deserve response.
TeaBAGS so full of hot air. YAWN.
Tricky Mitt Romney thought his disastrous overseas tour would get the American voters' minds off his taxes: Wrong. Fact is that Tricky Mitt comes out more each day as a deceitful flip-flopper than as a duplicitous, wimpy candidate who obsesses to takeover the oval office. When you are running for president, you should be an open book. Tricky Mitt is no different from Bernard Madoff and Tricky Dick (Pres. Richard Nixon). For 50 years (half a century since 1960) Madoff was not charged with $65 billion fraud because of power, influence, bribery= secretly known as not a lawbreaker like Tricky Mitt and Madoff would never have been caught had he not voluntarily confessed.Senator Harry Reid himself is standing by his statement in going for the jugular with his two evidence that Tricky Mitt did not pay taxes for 10 years which is why Sen. John McCain didn't choose him for VP. Seriously, Tricky Mitt cannot wait to buy the Presidency. In fact, thirty-two billionaires who are spending big to put Mitt in the White House accordingly want big things in return. This tax-cheating flip-flopper cannot be trusted to run for President and does not even have the decency or integrity to admit mistakes even if all evidences are jumping out at him.
Make up your mind, Mark. Do you want government to cut spending or not?
"Come November, after a full vetting of yur marxist messiah (which didn't happen in '08). This is gonna be a Reagan/Carter finish."
-----------------------------
You re saying Mitt Romney is Ronald Reagan??
WooT LoL
Good luck getting any straight or detailed answers. I'd ask him the following question.
What caused the Great Recession and what role did Capitalist Greed and lax Government Regulation play?
Mitt the Twit shouldn't quit his day job. Oh, that's right, he doesn't have a day job -- he's been running for president since the turn of the century.
Pulling down $21 million annually and paying a 13.9% tax on it is good work if you're privileged and elite enough to find it.
Romney is counting on the ignorance of the average American voter to let him weasel his way into the White House and continue Dubya's policies of trickle-down economics.
If BOTH parties make you want to puke, then call your county clerk and re-register as a "nonpartisan".
Your first question shows that your did not read the 20% tax rate -- reform proposal.
The reform would eliminate the tax deductions at an equivalent amount to off set the revenue or a rate change.
Since higher income taxpayers disproportionly use the deduction they would pay more taxes
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The Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that over $1 trillion of tax avoidance breaks are given out each year by the Federal Government.
So when people complain that the government is not getting enough revenue it is due to the tax breaks for the wealth not the tax rates. Today's rate were adequate to fund the government in the past - now with the $1 trillion tax avoidance breaks for the wealth they can not met revenue.
Tax avoidance breaks are for the sole purpose of Federal Government social engineering AND crony capitalism. The Federal Government is directing what people do with a 76,000 page tax code by emphasizing their objectives with a tax avoidance break.
The objective is to force businesses decisions based on tax avoidance rather then the best business needs.
72,000 pages of Tax avoidance breaks take many forms of individual and business credits, deductions, exemptions, income exclusion, multi-tiered rates, waivers, shelters, clawbacks, loopholes, swaps and exchanges, charities, excused penalties, stretch outs and carried forwards, family trust and see-through trusts, forgiveness, subsidies, incentives, grants, loans, stamps, bailouts, carveouts, and when it does not exist get a private-letter ruling
These tax avoidance breaks are for the sole purpose of rewarding political contributors and picking winners and losers.
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You know my friend: President Obama has almost taken up residence here. Why not ask him his list during any of his last 3 visits. All your questions can be answered easily: "history", look, Bush was faced with 9-11, Katrina, the floods in the mid west, Haiti, and he was faced with a dem congress from 2006 forward. Every bill that came forward for any of these events had pork attached. (He needed a "line item veto" to stop it.) Did you read the quarterly reports for the company that owns 10 major casinos in this valley? Losses of 145 million dollars. I hope you ask where the shovels are. I was proud the night this president was elected..but seeing him in action, if he hung with my crowd, he'd be known as a hustler. He has taken his job as words, not deeds. On top of the real estate in this valley, a new sales tax in the "affordable care act" depreciates the property even more, the death tax decreases the family inheritance by 50+%. I have to love the ALL GOVERNMENT student loans, now making those interest rates a vote in our Congress every year, already one vote has happened. (Think about a 5% loan being adjusted to 10% for a student with a hundred thousand dollar loan.) With you and your pencil, we don't need MSNBC, or do we? You are a mouth piece. Ask: What regulations do we need to get rid of. Ask how long should a law go out so a company can plan ahead and know what is for certain. Get his opinion on Japan and their economy over the last 10 years. Bain Capitol is publicly traded. You can find a lot in their filings if you want to know from beginning of Mitts start, but what if Mitt spent a few million covering up his life. What if his statement was.."I just had my "tax records" sealed".
We do not want this country to be one of entitlements. Many people think the government owes them a living. Food stamps and plenty of government handouts. Free medical care and housing assistance. As a taxpayer I really resent working my tail off so these bums can have all this. Where is the money going to come from to pay all these handouts? If you want to see a state going down the gutter look at California. Illinois is not much better. I do not want Nevada to be like those states.
The author of this article does not know a whole lot of taxes. Probably nothing. The federal tax rate for dividends is 15% and long term capital gains is 15%. Starting next year the rate for dividends for wealthy individuals will go to around 44%. The rate is the rate. Ask your own CPA.
Hey J. Patrick- Why don't you ask the same questions to Obama when he is here next week- along with Why is unemployment even higher than when he took office, Why is the deficit quadrupled, and Why are you so secretive about your past history that you have your college legal records sealed from the public's eyes? Stop being a patsy hypocrite for the liberals and do some actual unbiased reporting, Cooligan.