Multiple choice Mitt Romney on cutting taxes

Team Romney keeps shaking that Etch-A-Sketch. Mr. Romney’s positions change so fast you get dizzy trying to keep up with the latest shift. Yesterday a Romney spokesman said Mitt might not cut taxes and may have to raise taxes on the rich after all. This is because the math just doesn’t support the impossible promises Mr. Romney is making about his proposals.

But that was yesterday. Today, Romney contradicts his spokesman again:

Even as studies expose potential flaws with his tax plan, Mitt Romney is shutting down rumblings that his campaign is hedging on the notion that he can slash tax rates by 20 percent without lowering revenues.

“The governor’s plan calls for a 20% rate cut for all brackets, revenue neutrality, while ensuring that high-income earners continue to pay at least the same share of taxes,” a Romney spokesperson told TPM. “All of these goals are achievable, and the governor will work with Congress to enact tax reform that meets each of the goals he has proposed.”

The statement came in response to remarks this week from campaign adviser Kevin Hassett, who said that if Romney cannot make his math work, he’d set higher tax rates for high income earners instead of raising the burden on the middle class.

Of course, Romney still won’t tell us exactly how he’s going to make the numbers work, which is a genuine concern when even conservative economists say his math just doesn’t add up. The plan, as it’s thinly detailed now, would require either exploding the deficit or raising taxes on the middle class making under $250K in order to pay for greater tax cuts for the wealthy. Or he could cut every social program to the bone, including Medicare and Social Security, to make it revenue neutral. None of which is politically feasible.

Of course, he claims he has some magic formula that will make his implausible plan work but he’s not going to tell “us people” what that is until after he’s elected. As always, we’re just supposed to trust him. The bottom line is Mitt Romney is making wild promises he simply can’t keep.