Rocky Anderson on Tax Reform

Justice Party challenger for President; former mayor of Salt Lake City

Big tax cuts just cause more record deficits

ROMNEY: When you came to office, just over $10 trillion in debt--now $16 trillion in debt.

OBAMA: Governor Romney's called for $5 trillion of tax cuts that he says he's going to pay for by closing deductions. Now, the math doesn't work.

ANDERSON: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest flim-flam men of all time. He says we're going to start with a $16 trillion debt, we're going to give everybody a 20% tax cut, and then we're going to do away with some deductions. But have you noticed he's never identified what those deductions are going to be? Even if he did away with mortgage deductions and charitable deductions, which he's not likely to do, if you take all of those deductions, you can't give more than 4% in tax cuts without adding to our deficit, so there is no way that he could meet anywhere near these promises of balancing the budget. Instead, we would see more like we saw under the Reagan and the second Bush administrations, with record deficits with these Republican presidents.

Source: Democracy Now! Expanded Third Obama-Romney 2012 debate , Oct 22, 2012

Strongly supports progressive taxation

Q: Do you support or oppose the statement, "Make taxes more progressive"?

A: Strongly Support

Source: Email interview on presidential race with OnTheIssues.org , Feb 10, 2012

Massive tax favors to the very wealthiest is an obscenity

There is a greater economic disparity between the very wealthy and the rest of us in this country, greater than at any time since the 1920s. And we need to get things back to the point where we're building up a strong middle class. When you hear about these massive tax favors to the very wealthiest, and not giving a break to the middle class and the poor in this country, it's an obscenity. The loss of revenues from the Bush tax cuts, which have been perpetuated now both between the Republican and Democratic parties, it's been devastating to our economy. It's been devastating to our budget. It's like we've taken out this credit card in the name of our children and just ran it up recklessly, not bringing in the revenues to help pay it down. We're paying more in interest payments every year on the accumulated debt than it takes to run 13 departments of the federal government. We can do much better than this as a country. And we, as a people, need to understand, we can do this from the bottom up. Source: Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, "Challenger for Obama?" , Dec 13, 2011

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*Other big-city mayors on Tax Reform:*	*Rocky Anderson on other issues:*
Mike Bloomberg (I,New York City) Cory Booker (D,Newark,NJ) Julian Castro (D,San Antonio,TX) Rahm Emanuel (D,Chicago) Phil Gordon (D,Phoenix) Tom Menino (D,Boston) Michael Nutter (D,Philadelphia) Annise Parker (D,Houston) Mike Rawlings (D,Dallas) Jerry Sanders (R,San Diego) Antonio Villaraigosa (D,Los Angeles) *Former Mayors:* Rocky Anderson (I,Salt Lake City) Tom Barrett (D,Milwaukee,WI) Jerry Brown (D,Oakland,CA) Rudy Giuliani (R,New York City) Dennis Kucinch (D,Cleveland,OH) Sarah Palin (R,Wasilla,AK)	Abortion Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families/Children Foreign Policy Free Trade Govt. Reform Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Infrastructure/Technology Jobs Principles/Values Social Security Tax Reform War/Iraq/Mideast Welfare/Poverty

Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013