Mitt Romney Probably Shouldn't Refer to 'The Top One Percent'

On the same day President Obama proposed a tax reform plan, Mitt Romney is announcing details for his own tax plan in a speech in Arizona.

On the same day President Obama proposed a tax reform plan, Mitt Romney is announcing details for his own tax plan in a speech in Arizona. In a conference call with reporters, Romney's economic adviser Glenn Hubbard said Romney would cut marginal rates by 20 percent across the board, but in order to prevent the deficit from growing, he'd offset it with cuts to various tax deductions and a "broadening" of the tax base from high income earners. Politico's Reid Epstein reports from Arizona that Romney said:

In order to limit any impact on the deficit, because I do not want to add to the deficit, and also to make sure we continue to have progressivity in our code, I’m going to limit the deductions and exemptions particularly for high income folks,” he said. “And by the way, I want to make sure that you understand, for middle-income families, the deductibility of home mortgage interest and charitable contributions, those things will continue, but for high income folks, we are going to cut back on that so we make sure the top 1 percent keeps paying, paying the current share they’re paying or more. We want middle-income Americans to be the place we focus our help, because its middle-income Americans that have been hurt by this Obama economy.

Slate's Matt Yglesias points out that capping deductions for higher earners comes out of Obama's (former) playbook. Looks like he's trying not seem like he's benefiting his fellow 1-percenters while also proposing significant tax cuts. The campaign didn't release its specific analyses but look for commentary in the coming days to focus on whether he succeeds at toeing that line and whether the plan really is "revenue neutral" as he claims.