The Romney campaign today persuaded delegates to reject proposals to remove references to a Palestinian state from the party's plank on Israel.
The plank says Republicans "envision two democratic states -- Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine -- living in peace and security."
Altering that wording would amount to "removing the language that states the policy" that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has committed himself to over and over again," said Talent.
Gays In Military
The platform doesn't advocate reviving the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy abandoned after almost two decades by President Barack Obama, said Abbott James, an Oakton, Virginia, gay Republican who attended the session. The 2008 platform referred to "the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service."
The platform committee today rejected a motion to recognize civil unions for gay couples.
The Democratic Party's 2012 proposed platform was amended on Aug. 11 to include a plank supporting same-sex marriage.
To overhaul the tax code, Romney has proposed lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent and reducing individual income-tax rates by 20 percent. He has said that eliminating tax breaks for the highest-income Americans would help pay for the lower rates. He would also eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. The former Massachusetts governor hasn't specified which tax breaks he would eliminate.
Ending Tax Breaks
To keep his proposed tax-rate cuts revenue neutral, Romney would have to eliminate $320 billion worth of tax breaks, about 30 percent of the total, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said in a study released in Washington last month.