Paul Ryan Still Can't Name One Tax Loophole Romney Will Close

Debate moderator Martha Raddath asked Paul Ryan how Mitt Romney will pay for his tax cuts. Ryan proceeds to provide a meandering response.

RADDATZ: Well, let's talk about this 20 percent. You have refused -- and, again -- to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Do you actually have the specifics? Or are you still working on it, and that's why you won't tell voters?

(Crosstalk) RADDATZ: Do you know exactly what you're doing?

RYAN: Look -- look at what Mitt Romney -- look at what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. They worked together out of a framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base, and they worked together to fix that.

What we're saying is, here's our framework. Lower tax rates 20 percent. We raised about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. We forego about $1.1 trillion in loopholes and deductions. And so what we're saying is, deny those loophole and deductions to high-income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation...

Also in the absence of such base broading, TPC estimates that on a status basis, the Romney plan would lower federal tax liability about $900 billion in calendar year 2015 compared with current law, roughly a 24 percent cut in total projected revenue. Relative to a current policy baseline, the reduction in liability would be about $480 billion in calendar year 2015.

Romney would reduce the top tax bracket from 35 percent to 28 percent. The corporate tax rate would go down from 35 percent to 35 percent. The Tax Policy Center eliminated every possible tax loophole. The Tax Policy Center found that Romney's plan would increase the deficit. So much for the Romney plan being deficit neutral. Mind you, Romney and Ryan refuse to say what loopholes they would eliminate.

The Tax Policy Center found that the bottom 99 percent would not benefit from the Romney tax plan.

The result shown in the distribution tables would be little changed for the bottom 99 percent of tax units and the overall pattern of tax changes would be qualitively the same - the largest tax cuts as a share of after-tax income would go to the highest income earners.

The Romney plan has nothing to do with creating jobs or lowering the deficit. It is a giveaway to the richest Americans and corporations. This plan is so bad that Ryan has to cite American Enterprise Institute blog posts as studies that back his plans. Blog posts from a hack think tank are not studies.