But he’s just scared to admit it

Mitt Romney’s position on taxes is that he’d cut billionaires tax rate by 20 percent but somehow that would not lower the taxes billionaires pay.

He explains this by saying that he’d get rid of deductions so that the tax cut will pay for itself. When studies pointed out that this meant he’d have to raise taxes on the middle class or at least eliminate the home mortgage, charity, and state and local tax deductions for everyone earning over $100,000, Romney said that the tax cuts will actually be paid for by “growth.” The argument here is the rich will pay a lower rate but more gross taxes because of magic.

So the one lesson Mitt Romney has learned from a decade in which tax cuts for the rich didn’t create one net job is that you should STILL cut taxes for the richest. But you should be too embarrassed to admit that’s what you want to do.

Is this a step up from Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who sold their tax cuts for the rich boldly without fear of the rabble questioning what they were going to do?

No. At least they were selling what they were going to do. And they weren’t promising massive cuts the working class to go along with extravagant tax cuts.

Romney again and again has promised or implied that his cuts would pay for themselves and he would not give the rich new breaks. This is blatantly dishonest. This is “radically altering Medicare into a vouchercare and pretending you’re saving it” dishonest.

This dishonesty indicates that Democrats have won the battle of tax cuts for the rich. Now the job is to force Mitt to admit that he wants to cut tax rates for the richest, or at least compliment him for being embarrassed that he’s trying to sell such unmitigated bullshit.

[Picture by the illustrative Anne Savage.]