For months, Democrats have pressured Mitt Romney to explain how he can cut federal taxes by 20 percent and still balance the federal budget. He has said he’d do it by closing tax “loopholes” to reclaim the revenue foregone through the tax cuts.
On Tuesday, Talking Points Memo reported that Romney suggested that tax deductions be limited to $17,000. It’s a plan that would have a huge impact in the Lower Hudson Valley, where a large percentage of homeowners pay more than $17,000 in mortgage interest, and state and local taxes.
There are many homeowners in the northern suburbs who pay in excess of $17,000 a year in property taxes. And that’s before you even start with the mortgage interest deduction. Such a policy could deliver a huge hit to homeowners here.
Here’s what Romney told a Fox affiliate television reporter in Denver:
“As an option you could say everybody’s going to get up to a $17,000 deduction; and you could use your charitable deduction, your home mortgage deduction, or others — your healthcare deduction. And you can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000 bucket that way,” Romney told a Fox affiliate in Denver. “And higher income people might have a lower number.”
