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" Have I mentioned recently what a doofus Willard Romney really is? My wife, a journalist and something of a sage in these matters, warned me that the whole Big Bird thing was going to be the moment that echoed longest from Wednesday night&amp;#039;s debate. I was doubtful, in large part because I&amp;#039;d heard him say it all over Iowa last January and it didn&amp;#039;t seem to resonate with the god-enfeebled hayshakers out there at all. Now, though, it&amp;#039;s all people are still talking about. (On Hardball Thursday night, Chris Matthews, on whose last nerve Romney has been tromping all year, broke the &amp;quot;pissant&amp;quot; barrier on cable television by flaming the president for not confronting Romney over &amp;quot;this pissant argument about public broadcasting.&amp;quot;) If Romney is not hereafter haunted at various campaign stops by people in Big Bird suits carrying tin cups and singing, &amp;quot;Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?&amp;quot; \u2014 well, I&amp;#039;m going to be very disappointed by the modern American political imagination. Dick Tuck would have had Oscar The Grouch popping out of every trash can on the motorcade route by now. Also, it has been pointed out that Romney really has become quite a remarkable liar. He lies by commission, of course. (What $5-billion tax cut? Pre-existing conditions? Got those bad boys covered.) But he also lies by omission \u2014 namely, in his resolute determination not to be specific about what deductions he&amp;#039;s planning to close in order to pretend that the mathematics behind his budget were not designed by howler monkeys. What is clear, however, both from his current vague statements and from his record as governor of Massachusetts, is that the deduction for charitable giving has a big old bullseye on it.... &amp;quot;Some deductions are difficult to change, like mortgage interest or property taxes,&amp;quot; says Andreoni. &amp;quot;Those will stay fixed for now, and for many high earners will more than use up the $17,000 cap on deductions. By contrast, charitable giving is about the only category of deduction that people can use in the short run to adjust for an increase in taxes. ... [E]ven though both your mortgage and your charitable giving are losing some tax benefits, only your giving can change in the short run to make up part of that loss.&amp;quot; Which is why, as a citizen of the Commonwealth (God save it!), I have been remarkably unmoved by the well-wrought sob stories about Romney&amp;#039;s charitable giving. Those of us in Massachusetts know that the deduction for charitable donations is one of the things that was finagled during the one term of... wait for it... Governor Willard Romney. If you&amp;#039;re wondering who&amp;#039;s going to get fat on Romney&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;revenue-neutral&amp;quot; howler-monkey-math-derived budget, it&amp;#039;s not going to be anyone who needs the help. Believe that. And, yes, that means we couldn&amp;#039;t even write off the $50 bucks that got us the nice tote bag from the lady at our local PBS affiliate. Thanks, Willard! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16130/mitt-romney-big-bird-budget-13403514/?hootPostID=f473d7995ee0415fabb4024920e331de>