WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican White House candidate Mitt Romney is offering new ideas on the controversial issues of taxes
and immigration, sparking a fresh flashpoint with President Barack Obama before their inaugural debate Wednesday.
In interviews, the GOP nominee suggested an
option of limiting deductions to pay for his across-the-board income tax
cut and
revealed that he would honor temporary permission the Obama
administration granted to young illegal immigrants to allow them
to stay in the country.
The candidates stepped off the campaign
trail Tuesday for debate practice and left their running mates to rally
voters in
swing states. The Romney campaign pounced after Vice President Joe
Biden told a North Carolina audience that the middle class
has "been buried the last four years."
Romney posted on Twitter that he agrees with
Biden. "The middle class has been buried the last 4 years, which is why
we need
a change in November." The campaign also scheduled a conference
call with former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu to criticize
Biden's comments.
Biden told about 1,000 people in Charlotte:
"This is deadly earnest. How they can justify, how can they justify
raising taxes
on a middle class that has been buried the last four years? How in
Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these
tax cuts?"
Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said Romney's campaign was making "another desperate and out-of-context attack."
"As the vice president has been saying all
year and again in his remarks today, the middle class was punished by
the failed
Bush policies that crashed our economy — and a vote for Mitt
Romney and Paul Ryan is a return to those failed policies," Smith
said.
Biden's staff responded to the Romney
criticism, also via Twitter, saying Biden "made clear in his remarks
today that Romney-Ryan
would take us back to the failed Bush policies that crashed our
economy."
The dispute followed the Obama campaign's criticism of Romney's remarks on immigration in an interview published Tuesday in
the Denver Post.
"The people who have received the special
visa that the president has put in place, which is a two-year visa,
should expect
that the visa would continue to be valid. I'm not going to take
something that they've purchased," Romney said. "Before those
visas have expired we will have the full immigration reform plan
that I've proposed."
Obama announced in June that he would prevent deportation for some children brought to the United States by illegal immigrant
parents. Applicants must not have a serious criminal record and must meet other requirements, such as graduating from high
school or serving in the U.S. military.
The program closely tracked with the DREAM
Act, a bill that failed to pass Congress that would have provided a path
to legal
status for many young illegal immigrants. Romney said during the
Republican presidential primary campaign that he would veto
DREAM Act legislation.
Obama campaign spokesman Gabriela Domenzain said Romney's statement to the Denver Post "raises more questions than it answers,"
including whether he would repeal Obama's policy or deport those who have received a deferment after two years.
"We know he called the DREAM Act a 'handout' and that he promised to veto it," Domenzain said. "Nothing he has said since
contradicts this and we should continue to take him at his word."
The Denver Post interview comes as Romney and Obama are fighting a heated battle for Colorado, whose significant Hispanic
population could determine which candidate receives the state's nine electoral votes.
Throughout the Republican primary, Romney
took an aggressive tack on immigration, saying in debates that he
approved of "self-deportation,"
where undocumented workers would choose to leave the country on
their own because they were unable to find work. He assailed
rival Rick Perry, the Texas governor, for allowing illegal
immigrants to attend Texas state colleges and universities at reduced,
in-state tuition rates. Romney always has said he supports a path
to citizenship for illegal immigrants who serve in the military.
After Romney secured the nomination, he indicated he would review potential legislation from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio that
would allow some young illegal immigrants a way to stay in the country.
In another interview Monday with Denver
television station KDVR, Romney laid out a possible scenario for paying
for proposal
to cut all income tax rates by 20 percent. He's previously said
the cuts would be funded by closing loopholes and deductions,
but that the specifics would have to be worked out with Congress.
"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 health care
deduction, and you can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000
bucket that way," Romney said. "And higher income people might
have a lower number."
Obama spent Tuesday preparing for Wednesday's debate at a resort in Henderson, Nev., while Romney was spending most of the
day in practice with plans to tour the debate stage set up on the University of Denver campus.