No country for bold men

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No Country for Bold Men
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Frankly, it's crazy enough that the American people would prefer a generic Republican, given what they did to us during the Bush years (and ending in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression).

Heck, it's crazy just given what they've done to us in the past three years alone! But all too many Americans are woefully ignorant about what's been going on in Washington. That's why we're in this fix.

But Mitt Romney has to be the worst candidate I've ever seen. He's flip-flopped on everything, as steady as a weather vane.  He refuses to release his tax returns because he'll clearly be in even worse shape if the American people know what's in them.

And his tax plan will raise the taxes of 95% of Americans in order to give even more tax breaks to the wealthiest 5%:

The study was conducted by researchers at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, who seem to bend over backward to be fair to the Republican presidential candidate. To cover the cost of his plan — which would reduce tax rates by 20 percent, repeal the estate tax and eliminate taxes on investment income for middle-class taxpayers — the researchers assume that Romney would go after breaks for the richest taxpayers first.

They even look at what would happen if Republicans’ dreams for tax reform came true and the proposal generated significant revenue through economic growth.

None of it helped Romney. His rate-cutting plan for individuals would reduce tax collections by about $360 billion in 2015, the study says. To avoid increasing deficits — as Romney has pledged — the plan would have to generate an equivalent amount of revenue by slashing tax breaks for mortgage interest, employer-provided health care, education, medical expenses, state and local taxes, and child care — all breaks that benefit the middle class.

“It is not mathematically possible to design a revenue-neutral plan that preserves current incentives for savings and investment and that does not result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers,” the study concludes.

Even if tax breaks “are eliminated in a way designed to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible, there would still be a shift in the tax burden of roughly $86 billion [a year] from those making over $200,000 to those making less” than that.

Mathematically impossible? But Republicans don't believe in math.

And Romney's one big advantage is Citizens United, and the massive donations - anonymous, even when they come from corporate treasuries - from those wealthy people he plans to pay off.

This will be no country for bold men or women if we don't wake up.