Remember — uhm, I think it was — yesterday, when President Obama said that the GOP’s cliff counteroffer proposing $800 billion in new revenue without raising taxes was untenable, because the math just doesn’t work?

Oh, and then there was the time — also yesterday — that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that “it’s not a plan to say that we’re going to magically increase revenues through loophole closures and deduction caps,” à la magic beans and fairy dust?

Yes, about that.

Once upon a time (that time being July 2011), Democrats actually thought that the math of raising that much revenue through closing loopholes, capping deductions, and eliminating credits, without hiking tax rates, could work. In fact, forget $800 billion; President Obama claimed he could wring $1.2 trillion out of such a plan. So, Republicans are essentially repeating one of the president’s plans back at him, and now it’s somehow the most far-fetched idea on the planet — who knew that the accuracy of simple math depended so heavily on political calculation?

What we’ve said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues, which could be accomplished without hiking tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions, and engaging in a tax reform process that could have lowered rates generally while broadening the base.

Oh, the tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive! It is so painfully, glaringly obvious that there is absolutely no real policy rationale for Democrats insistence on hiking tax rates on the wealthy, especially since doing so will amount to pretty much nothing in covering the additional spending President Obama wants to do. But hey, given their newfound interest in math — sure, let’s talk math.