In a new TV ad out this morning, the Romney campaign highlights Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter saying, ““Well, okay, stipulated, it won’t be near $5 trillion,” regarding the Romney tax plan, after hearing that CNN had found it was inaccurate that the plan would lead to a $5 trillion deficit:
On This Week this morning, Robert Gibbs denied that the campaign had changed its position on Romney’s tax cut, despite what Cutter said.
“No, absolutely not,” Gibbs said. “If you’re going to reduce the Bush tax rates by 20 percent, and the estate tax, and the AMT, change the corporate rate, and a whole host of other changes, that adds up to a reduction in revenue, $4.8 trillion. The question for Governor Romney is, what loopholes are you going to close? Supposedly, to make up for that revenue? And if you don’t close $4.8 trillion in those loopholes, two things happen. Either the deficit goes up, or more likely, is the middle class is going to see their taxes go up and end up paying for his promises.”
But later on the program, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie argued the tax cuts could be offset by closing loopholes. “You can pay for it,” Gillespie said. “There are six studies that say you can do that. You can broaden the base and lower the rates, that would foster economic growth. And we’ve done that in the past. There’s one study that says that you can’t — that uses the word assume or assumption 68 times by a liberal think tank and that’s what Gibbs and others point to.”
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