GOP Panel Rejects Plank on Mortgage-Interest Deductions

August 21, 2012, 6:15 AM

By Andrew Grossman

The committee drafting the Republican Party’s platform rejected a bid to include a plank calling for preservation of the mortgage interest tax deduction Monday.
The battle pitted allies of the beleaguered real-estate industry – who favor the deduction – against some conservative activists, who favor a simpler tax code with fewer deductions overall. Party leaders also opposed the amendment, hoping to avoid a drawn-out battle over preserving a range of different tax breaks in the party platform.

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But some opponents of Monday’s amendment conceded that the home-mortgage break is uniquely important to many voters, and the final vote on the measure was close.
The rejected amendment, proposed by Shirley Wiseman of Kentucky, would have added “We must preserve the mortgage interest deduction” to the party’s platform.
A number of delegates backed the measure, calling it an important statement of support for the struggling residential real estate market and homebuyers.
“This shows the Republican Party’s policy of supporting the middle class, supporting those who want to enter the middle class,” said John Sigler, a delegate from Delaware.
Opponents of the amendment, including former Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, said specific platform provisions on the tax code would bog down the platform and get in the way of major tax reform.
Proposals like this one, said Minnesota delegate Kevin Erickson, are the reason an overhaul of the tax code is so hard.
“As soon as we start talking about it, everyone has a pet one,” Mr. Erickson said. “Comprehensive tax reform that we’re talking about means the entire thing gets redone from the ground up.”
The amendment failed on a show of hands, after committee leaders couldn’t decide which side won a voice vote.

August 20th, 2012

10:41 PM ET

First on CNN: GOP prepares tough anti-abortion platform

Posted by

CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby

Tampa, Florida (CNN) - The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday.

"Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed," the draft platform declares. "We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."
The party will reaffirm its opposition to federally-funded embryonic stem cell research and demand that the government "not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage."
Republicans have also inserted a "salute" to states pushing "informed consent" laws - an apparent reference to ultrasound bills that have moved through some state legislatures - "mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and health-protective clinic regulation."
The document, crafted Monday in a subcommittee meeting of the Republican Party's official platform committee in Tampa, is being closely guarded by party officials but was provided to CNN by a Republican source here.
The source cautioned that the statement of principle is still in draft form and must be approved by the full platform committee on Tuesday and by delegates to the Republican National Convention next week.
The GOP's abortion plank faces scrutiny every four years, and this year's document contains language similar to the platforms that were adopted by the party at their conventions in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
But the abortion issue has been thrust into the center of the presidential campaign as this year's convention approaches, thanks to comments from Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, a U.S. Senate candidate, about abortion and "legitimate rape."
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan sharply condemned Akin's remarks and pledged that under a Romney administration, abortion would be allowed in the case of rape.
An exemption for rape, though, is not included in the platform set to be adopted by the party Romney will officially lead when he accepts the Republican nomination next week.
And Ryan, his vice presidential pick, has opposed exceptions for rape and voted alongside Akin in the House, though Ryan now says he defers to Romney's position on the matter.
Debate over the abortion plank flared four years ago when John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee at the time, said he wanted to add language to the platform to recognize exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
That prompted angry finger-wagging from top social conservatives.
Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, chided McCain and said it would be "political suicide" for him to add language about exceptions for rape or incest in the abortion platform.

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