Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich defended Mitt Romney’s $4.8 trillion tax-cut plan and cited four pieces of evidence that support its solubility.
First, Romney has indicated he will scale down the tax break if he can’t get Congress to close the necessary tax loopholes to make the math work, Gingrich said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Second, Gingrich said there is a “genuine intellectual argument” about taking into account the economic growth that occurs as a result of an across-the-board tax cut, pointing out that the Simpson-Bowles analysis of the proposed budget doesn’t factor that in to the equation.
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Third, Romney’s domestic-energy plan will lead to $750 billion in royalties coming into the United States during the next two decades, Gingrich said.
Lastly, Gingrich said Romney has stated wealthy Americans will not get a tax break under the plan.
Gingrich said if President Barack Obama disagrees with the numbers, he should have said so during last week’s debate.
“The president of the United States had 90 minutes . . . ,” he said. “Why didn’t he say it? Why didn’t he take Romney head-on? The job of the president is supposed to be to be competent and to be able to stand up for what he believes in and to be able to articulate what’s wrong. Mitt Romney walked over him.”
Businessman Jack Welch’s public questioning of the legitimacy of the Labor Department’s unemployment report, which calculated the new rate at 7.8 percent, should prompt a discussion about trust.
“The reason people are losing respect for Washington is they’re losing respect for Washington,” he said. “It’s not some . . . right-wing crazy thing. I don’t know a single small-businessman or woman who believes that the next four years under Obama are going to be good.”
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Gingrich said “it was a significant help to the president” that the rate came out at its lowest of Obama’s term in office.
“Imagine it [had] come out at 8.2 following that debate,” he said. “People would have entered this weekend saying, ‘Well, that’s close to the end.'”
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