By Nick Mann | 12 October 2012
The US vice-presidential hopefuls have clashed over their parties’ plans for future tax policies and how they would reduce the federal budget deficit.
During a televised debate in Kentucky last night, Democrat vice-president Joe Biden claimed the Republicans would support the continuation of tax cuts for ‘middle class’ families only if those for people on $8m a year were also extended.
‘They're pushing the continuation of a tax cut that will give an additional $500bn in tax cuts to 120,000 families. And they're holding hostage the middle-class tax cut because they say, we won't pass — we won't continue the middle-class tax cut unless you give the tax cut for the super-wealthy. It's about time they take some responsibility.’
He added: ‘We are not going to repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set of rules for Wall Street and Main Street, making sure that we continue to haemorrhage these tax cuts for the super-wealthy.’
Under the Democrats’ tax plans, ‘the middle class will pay less, and people making a million dollars or more will begin to contribute slightly more’, Biden said.
Republican vice-presidential hopeful Paul Ryan said a Mitt Romney-led administration would introduce ‘fundamental tax reform’ to encourage economic growth and create new jobs at the same time as reducing the US deficit, which was an estimated $1.1trn in the financial year ending September 30.
‘What we are saying is lower tax rates across the board and close loopholes, primarily to the higher-income people,’ he explained. ‘We have three bottom lines: don't raise the deficit, don't raise taxes on the middle class and don't lower the share of income that is borne by the high-income earners.’
Criticising current president Barack Obama for a ‘string of broken promises’, Ryan also said he had not put a ‘credible plan on the table’ to deal with the US ‘debt crisis’.
He said that as chair of the house budget committee he had ‘passed two budgets to deal with this’. He added: ‘Mitt Romney's put ideas on the table. We've got to tackle this debt crisis before it tackles us.’
