Wondering which loopholes for the rich Mitt Romney would close to pay for a $5 trillion tax cut? Don't go to his website.
A Romney budget, the website promises, would make the tax code "fairer, flatter and simpler." It would bring a wide range of relief to the overtaxed American, from an across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates to the end of the estate tax. Corporations, too, are people, so MittRomney.com pledges to cut the corporate tax rate to 25 percent.
But just as Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, have been in interview after interview, the website is silent on how their administration would pay for all those appealing-sounding tax cuts. Occasionally, Romney has said he would do away with loopholes and deductions for higher-income earners. The independent Tax Policy Center thinks there's no way those could pay for all his cuts.
According to a Google search, the word "loophole" appears only once on Romney's website -- on an unrelated press release from the primaries about his record of "standing up to Big Labor."
"Deduction," meanwhile, pops up on pages about Romney's tax returns, on a blog post attacking President Barack Obama over Medicare, in a mention of a tax deduction for businesses installing fire sprinklers, in a press release about the fiscal cliff, and on a pledge to expand the deduction for people who buy their own health insurance. There's nothing specifically addressing the tax cuts.
In Romney's 160-page "Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth," tax loopholes and deductions merit one vague mention -- but not from the GOP nominee. It comes in a letter from Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy.
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