On the eve of last week's presidential debate, Republican Mitt Romney floated a trial balloon to deflect public attention from his detail-free tax plan certain to give a massive windfall for the wealthy, burden middle class taxpayers and balloon the national debt. But largely overlooked in his murky and still-to-be defined proposal to put a dollar cap on individual tax deductions is the devastating impact it would have on charitable giving. Combined with his demand to end the estate tax, Romney's plan would choke off donations to America's non-profits, churches and charities.

When President Obama in 2009 proposed raising $318 billion over the next decade by trimming wealthier taxpayers' deductions for charitable giving from 35to 28 percent, Republicans were apoplectic. Then House Minority Leader John Boehner darkly warned the reform would "deliver a sharp blow to charities at a time when they are hurting during the economic downturn." But as Bloomberg and The Chronicle of Philanthropy each explained at the time, Obama's proposal would likely have little to no impact on charitable giving. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy put the impact at only 1.9 percent of total donations. Noting that the same upper income 28 percent deduction was in place during Ronald Reagan's first term, then-OMB chief Peter Orszag rightly concluded that "what drives charitable contributions is overall economic growth."

But Governor Romney's proposed cap on individual deductions is another matter altogether. As he explained his new plan conveniently unveiled on the eve of last week's first presidential debate:

"As an option you could say everybody's going to get up to a $17,000 deduction; and you could use your charitable deduction, your home mortgage deduction, or others - your healthcare deduction. And you can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000 bucket that way. And higher income people might have a lower number."

Within 24 hours, Romney changed his plan yet again. Once-again side-stepping the question of which tax credits, deductions and loopholes he would end, Romney pulled a new figure out of the air during Wednesday's debate:

"Make up a number, $25,000, $50,000. Anybody can have deductions up to that amount. And then that number disappears for high-income people."

If so, a large source of funding for America's hospitals, museums, institutions of higher education and more might disappear as well.

Currently, only about 30 percent of filers itemize their deductions, which in 2009 averaged over $26,000. But as Ezra Klein explained last week, "80 percent of tax savings from itemization goes to the top 20 percent of Americans households, and 25 percent of the savings goes to the 1 percent." In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office said those making over $500,000 a year gave 3.4 percent of their income to charity. (Individual contributions accounted for $227 billion of the $304 billion raised by charities in 2009.) Romney's proposed cap would have its greatest impact on upper-income, blue state residents, whose larger state and local tax bills and home mortgage interest payments currently provide the biggest sources of deductions. But charitable giving by the wealthiest Americans, like Mitt Romney's own $2.25 million deduction in 2011, could be slashed as well.

Jim Andreoni, a UC San Diego professor of economics who studies the economics of charitable giving, explained why:

"The effect on charitable giving is likely to be large for high income individuals, especially in the short run..."Some deductions are difficult to change, like mortgage interest or property taxes," says Andreoni. "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.

So, high income donors will have two reasons to cut back on giving. First, they are losing after-tax income from deductions on things other than giving and that are hard to adjust, like mortgage interest. Second, giving itself will become far more expensive and is far easier to change than other deductions. It's intuitive to me that charitable giving will take a big hit from the cap on deductions."

(Given his annual 10 percent tithe mandated by his church, Mitt Romney would likely be an exception to the rule. Still, that doesn't make his claim that his charitable contributions make his own paltry tax rate "really closer to 45 or 50 percent" any more true.)

But capping the dollar value of annual deductions isn't the only way Mitt Romney's tax plan would gut charitable giving. As it turns out, Romney's proposal to end the estate tax, a move which would save his heirs $80 million and those of his billionaire backers billions more, would dramatically slow the cash flow to America's non-profits.

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That Mitt Romney will say anything to become President of the United States — no matter how blatantly false or comically contradictory — is sadly taken as a given in Election 2012. But while his pathetic pandering and transparent dissembling are not new, novel theories to explain his pathology are rapidly proliferating. Rick Perlstein sees Romney as an undoubting Hamlet determined to avenge his father's defeat most foul in 1968. As Jonathan Chait explained, there's even a clinical term for Mitt's compulsive aversion to the truth, known as "fundamental attribution error." And just two weeks ago, David Javerbaum offered his ground-breaking (and side-splitting) "Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney."

But whatever hypothesis you may subscribe to, an incontrovertible truth is that on almost any issue, Mitt Romney's position changes when observed. Call it the Romney Uncertainty Principle. And as his advisers once again confirmed this week, Mitt Romney's defining trait is a feature, not a bug.

That admission comes via Fred Barnes, the conservative water carrier for Republicans past and present. Just three weeks after campaign strategist Eric Fehrnstrom boasted that his RomneyBot can easily be reprogrammed for a post-primary run back to the center ("You hit a reset button for the fall campaign ... It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.), Team Romney promised voters that the unseen Mitt is softer and gentler than the one observed during the Republican primaries:

On one issue--immigration--Mr. Romney would be wise to move away from his harsh position in the primaries. He can't afford to lose the Hispanic vote as decisively as John McCain--who won just 31% of it--did in 2008. According to a Romney adviser, his private view of immigration isn't as anti-immigrant as he often sounded.

As it turns out, Romney himself has been surprisingly candid about his strategy. Given his battered approval ratings and well-earned reputation for flip-flopping (even to the point of bragging that "I think you'll find that I've been as consistent as human beings can be" after having declared "if you're looking for someone who's never changed any positions on any policies, then I'm not your guy"), Mitt has announced that only he knows the details of any position he advocates.

For months, the Romney campaign auto-response of "no comment" has been on display across a gamut of issues ranging from the mass deportation of illegal aliens and Ohio's anti-labor laws to extension of the payroll tax cut and even GOP debate attendees booing a gay active duty U.S. soldier. But in a December interview with the Wall Street Journal, the RomneyBot admitted his cowardice was simply his app working as designed:

Amid such generalities, it's hard not to conclude that the candidate is trying to avoid offering any details that might become a political target. And he all but admits as much. "I happen to also recognize," he says, "that if you go out with a tax proposal which conforms to your philosophy but it hasn't been thoroughly analyzed, vetted, put through models and calculated in detail, that you're gonna get hit by the demagogues in the general election."

Unfortunately, what Mitt Romney branded "demagogues" most Americans call "voters."

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The new House Republican budget unveiled by Congressman Paul Ryan last week does many things. Ryan’s so-called “Path to Prosperity” would deliver yet another massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy and pay for it by gutting the social safety net he pretends to protect. “Ryancare” would end Medicare as we know it with a premium support gambit that would dramatically shift health care costs to America's seniors. While increasing defense spending, the House Budget Chairman would repeal the Affordable Care, slash Medicaid by a third and leave an estimated 48 million more people without health insurance. And despite his lofty pledges to eliminate many tax loopholes and deductions to fund his gilded-class giveaway, Paul Ryan doesn’t have the courage to say which ones.

Which is why the Ryan plan does not do the biggest thing it claims to achieve. Rather than reducing the U.S. national debt, Paul Ryan’s House GOP budget would bleed trillions in more red ink from the U.S. Treasury.

Nevertheless, as Heather of Crooks and Liars’ Video Café pointed out, Republicans and their water carriers at Fox News continue to pretend otherwise. On Sunday morning, Mike Huckabee aided GOP Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) in perpetuating that myth:

HUCKABEE: Well, one of the things that your committee has put forth this week Congressman is a chart. It's pretty startling and it shows that if we continue on the current trajectory, here's what happens to really the debt as a share of the economy verses Congressman Ryan and your committee's plan. You see in the green, that's the path that Congressman Ryan has that gets us back to a balanced budget.

Frankly, it takes a while, to the year 2040, but describe what happens if we don't do something pretty bold.

PRICE: Well, you see the gray on that chart on the left side of the chart is the amount of debt, the percentage of debt that relates to the gross domestic product that we've had in this country since 1940 until now. The red is not made up. That is the President's budget. That's the current plan that the President has in order to get this economy rolling...That's just going to kill us as a country. So what we believe again is there are responsible, positive ways to solve this. The green on the chart is that responsible way, which gets us on a path to balance and then allows us over period of time, yes a significant period of time, but allows us to pay off the $15 trillion plus in debt that this country has.

As it turns out, not so much. There’s nothing “responsible” or “positive” about it.

That may seem like a surprising result, given Rep. Ryan's declaration that his mission is to "prevent an explosion of debt from crippling our nation and robbing our children of their future." But even with his draconian budget blueprint that cuts Medicaid by a third, ends Medicare as we know it, adds 48 million people to the ranks of the uninsured and by 2050 would result in ending all non-defense discretionary spending, over the next decade Ryan would unleash torrents of red ink from the U.S. Treasury. Ezra Klein explained how Paul Ryan came up $6.2 trillion short:

The Tax Policy Center looked into the revenue loss associated with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to cut the tax code down to two rates of 10 percent and 25 percent. They estimate the changes would raise $31.1 trillion over 10 years, or 15.4 percent of GDP. That's $10 trillion less than the tax code would raise if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire, and $4.6 trillion less than it would raise if all of the Bush tax cuts were extended.

The Republican congressman says he'll "broaden the tax base to maintain revenue...consistent with historical norms of 18 to 19 percent." So let's say Ryan needs to find close-enough deductions and loopholes to hit 18.5 percent of GDP. That means he'd need to close about $6.2 trillion in tax deductions and loopholes over 10 years.

(See chart after the break.)

And so far, Ryan hasn't had the courage to name a single deduction he would end or loophole he would close. As Matthew Yglesias pointed out, in Ryan's 13-page description of his tax reform vision, those politically tough choice are completely missing:

Thirteen pages dedicated to explaining his vision for revenue-neutral tax reform. And even so he manages to not name a single tax deduction that he's planning to eliminate. Home mortgage interest deduction? I dunno. Electric vehicle tax credit? I dunno. Deductibility of state and local income taxes? I dunno.

Rolling out his plan on Tuesday, Ryan admitted as much. The responsibility for making the numbers work and taking the heat for ending popular deductions would go to House Ways and Means Committee, which Ryan claimed would "show how they would go about doing this." It's no wonder Greg Sargent said Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" plan simply "is not serious" while the New York Times called it "careless."

And one other thing. Over the next 10 years, the Ryan House budget would add substantially more to the national debt than President Obama's proposed 2013 plan.

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Introducing his new running mate on Saturday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney boasted, "We offer solutions that are bold, specific, and achievable." Number Two dutifully followed Number One, as Paul Ryan then promised voters, "We won't duck the tough issues...we will lead."

Just not, it turns out, when it comes to the central premise of the Romney-Ryan economic plan. Both men have pledged to lower tax rates and "broaden the base" by closing some of the myriad deductions and loopholes that cost the United States Treasury over $1 trillion a year in lost revenue. But because neither man has "the courage to tell you the truth" in "the light of day," which tax expenditures they will close--and which Americans be hit hardest--will be a mystery until after Election Day. The result is that the ersatz Republican deficit hawks will add trillions more to the national debt than the Democrats they want to replace while raising the tax bill on working families.

While Governor Romney has stopped short of fully adopting the Ryan House Republican budget he has called "marvelous" and repeatedly pledged to sign if it crossed his desk, their respective blueprints are nearly identical on the issues that matter most. Both Ryan and Romney would deliver a massive tax cut windfall for the rich, a multi-trillion giveaway offset only in part by gutting the social safety net each pretends to protect. Romney-Ryan ends Medicare as we know it with a "premium support" gambit that would dramatically shift health care costs to America's seniors. Their shared call for repealing the Affordable Care Act could leave up to 48 million more people without health insurance. Even as their draconian austerity budgets would increase unemployment beginning in 2013, both men would nevertheless ratchet up defense spending. And despite their mutual pledges to end many tax loopholes and deductions to fund their gilded-class giveaway, Romney and Ryan are too cowardly to say which ones. As a result, these supposed deficit hawks would actually add trillions more in red ink to the national debt.

As it turns out, there's a simple problem with Ryan's bragging that his plan will "prevent an explosion of debt from crippling our nation and robbing our children of their future." That is, his math doesn't work. As the Washington Post's Ezra Klein explained in March, Ryan has a roughly $6 trillion hole to fill:

The Tax Policy Center looked into the revenue loss associated with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to cut the tax code down to two rates of 10 percent and 25 percent. They estimate the changes would raise $31.1 trillion over 10 years, or 15.4 percent of GDP. That's $10 trillion less than the tax code would raise if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire, and $4.6 trillion less than it would raise if all of the Bush tax cuts were extended.

The Republican congressman says he'll "broaden the tax base to maintain revenue...consistent with historical norms of 18 to 19 percent." So let's say Ryan needs to find close-enough deductions and loopholes to hit 18.5 percent of GDP. That means he'd need to close about $6.2 trillion in tax deductions and loopholes over 10 years.

But so far, Rep. Ryan has refused to answer the $6 trillion question: which tax deductions and loopholes will he close? And as we'll see below, he's not the only refusenik on the GOP's 2012 ticket.

As the Washington Post showed (chart above), the trillion-plus dollars in annual tax expenditures is now larger than Uncle Sam's take from the income tax each year. And as the Post also highlighted last year, "ever-increasing tax breaks for U.S. families eclipse benefits for special interests."

It's important to understand that much of the estimated $1.3 trillion in annual tax expenditures in 2015 (a figure larger than the entire 2012 budget deficit and equivalent to about a third of the $3.8 trillion in federal spending next year) benefit working and middle income Americans. For example, the home mortgage tax deduction was worth $89 billion in 2011. Tax-deferred 401K accounts cost the Treasury $63 billion. The Earned Income Tax Credit had a similar $63 billion price tag last year.

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