Romney Talks of Ending Some Tax Deductions for Wealthy
Mitt Romney
inadvertently offered a public preview of some of his economic plans on
Sunday, revealing to high-dollar donors at a private fund-raising event
that he wants to eliminate tax deductions for wealthy people who own
second homes.
Mr. Romney’s comments were overheard by reporters standing outside the event on a sidewalk and first reported by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News. During the event, Mr. Romney also told the donors that he might eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development and reduce the size of the Education Department.
Mr.
Romney told the donors that the housing agency “might not be around
later” and said the Education Department would be “a heck of a lot
smaller” even if it wasn’t eliminated altogether, The Journal reported.
“I’m
going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and
combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just
exactly which ones are going to go,” Mr. Romney said, according to NBC.
“Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of,
that might not be around later. But I’m not going to actually go through
these one by one. What I can tell you is, we’ve got far too many
bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the
states.”
The overheard comments offer a first glimpse of the kind
of specific policies that Mr. Romney might pursue as president.
Publicly, Mr. Romney has hinted that he would limit deductions for
wealthy homeowners, but has not said how he might do that. And in his
remarks Sunday, he also hinted that he might curtail deductions for state and property taxes for the wealthy.
And
Mr. Romney has resisted offering many details about the cuts to
government spending that would allow him to achieve the kind of deficit
reductions he has projected considering the cuts in taxes that he has
talked about.
Officials with the Republican campaign said Mr.
Romney was just tossing out ideas at the fund-raiser, not unveiling new
policies. They accused Democrats of using the incident to try to
distract attention from the economic situation under President Obama.
“While President Obama
is interested only in offering excuses and blaming others for his
failures, Governor Romney is discussing some of the ideas he has to
tackle the big issues facing America,” said Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman
for Mr. Romney. “Governor Romney has also laid out a bold set of policy
proposals that will grow our economy, cut spending and get our massive
debt under control.”
At the fundraiser, Mr Romney and his wife,
Ann, offered candid and casual observations that did not appear intended
for wider public consumption. Mr. Romney, instance, remarked that Fox
News was watched by “true believers,” and that the party needed to
broaden its appeal to women and independents, according to the NBC
account. And Mrs. Romney said she “loved” the fallout generated when a
Democratic political operative say that Mrs. Romney had “never worked a
day in her life.”
“It was my early birthday present for someone to
be critical of me as a mother, and that was really a defining moment,”
NBC quoted her as saying.
Mr. Obama’s campaign quickly pounced on
the remarks, describing Mr. Romney as willing to reveal his intentions
only to well-connected donors, not to the public.
“Apparently,
Governor Romney believes only high-dollar donors have a right to know
what programs he will cut,” wrote Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr.
Obama’s campaign, in an e-mail to reporters. “Education. Housing. To pay
for $5 trillion tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”
Democrats
have already been trying to convince voters that Mr. Romney is hiding
things from voters. They point to the fact that Mr. Romney has not
identified his “bundlers,” the handful of donors who gather up
contributions from their wealthy friends. And they have criticized Mr.
Romney for releasing only two years of tax returns.
An e-mail Monday morning from Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, was headlined: “In case you’re keeping count at home: Things Mitt Romney Hides.”
To
that list, Mr. Woodhouse added, “Now we learn policies he’d pursue as
president (unless you’re a high-dollar donor, of course).”
The
Romney campaign quickly sought to play down the new proposals on Monday,
suggesting that the candidate was simply bouncing around a few ideas
with donors, not laying out new policy.
During a Romney campaign conference call focused on President Obama’s tax proposals, former Senator James M. Talent
of Missouri said Mr. Romney “was discussing ideas that came up at the
meeting, which happens a lot when you are on the stump or doing
interviews with the press.”
When it became clear that questions
from the news media about Mr. Romney’s remarks at the Florida
fund-raiser would dominate the conference call, an aide to Mr. Romney
ended the session after three questions.