Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan again refused to explain what tax deductions he and Mitt Romney would seek to eliminate if elected, but he did offer a clear message that people who make less than $150,000 would pay a lower tax rate than they do now.

“You can lower tax rates across the board by 20 percent, primarily limit your deductions from those at the top end, and then get rid of all those nook and cranny special-interest tax expenditures,” Ryan told Bloomberg in a televised interview Tuesday morning. "You can do this without raising taxes on middle-class taxpayers. This actually lowers their taxes."

The across-the-board 20 percent tax cut Romney has called for would be part of a plan that could cost the federal government more than $4 trillion in revenue during the next 10 years.

But Romney, without being specific, has said the elimination of deductions and loopholes would ensure that tax revenues stay steady.

Democrats have said such a plan would cost middle-class taxpayers more than now, but Ryan beat back those claims.

Romney said Monday night that one option he is considering is structuring the tax cut as a $17,000 deduction that could be cobbled together from smaller deductions such as for charitable giving, healthcare spending and having a home mortgage. 

"You can fill that bucket, if you will, that $17,000 bucket that way," he said. "And higher income people might have a lower number."

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