"Mitt Romney’s Lies and a Startling Truth" by David Sirota at In These Times

Mitt Romney’s Lies and a Startling Truth

by David Sirota at In These Times

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14012/a_gop_shift_on_taxes

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That circle began more than a quarter century ago, when, in the midst of his push to raise taxes, President Ronald Reagan railed on “unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share” and criticized a system that “made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying ten percent of his salary.”

Unfortunately, since then, the GOP reoriented itself around a destructive anti-tax theology. In a matter of a few decades, the national debt predictably exploded as the party's orthodoxy went from “read my lips, no new taxes” (George H.W. Bush) to “if you raise taxes on these so-called rich, you're really raising taxes on the job creators” (George W. Bush) to recent years' pervasive Republican rhetoric about so-called “makers” and “takers.” Yet now, suddenly, Romney is closing the rhetorical loop, repeatedly claiming at the first presidential debate that he will refuse to support any new tax cuts for the wealthy.

Of course, based on his proposal's granular details, a President Romney will almost certainly try to cut taxes for his fellow 1%-ers. Thus, it's easy to dismiss his debate statements as just unimportant campaign rhetoric representing nothing more than political expediency. But, then, Romney's lying actually underscores the potentially deeper significance of this moment. It shows even some leaders of the trickle-down party recognize that voter hostility to plutocratic tax proposals has grown (rightly) intense–so intense, in fact, that GOP leaders know their party must try to publicly disown the trickle-down image, to the point of lying about their true agenda. And here's the thing: eventually, such brand reinvention efforts often sow the seeds of more genuine changes in policy positions.

None of this means Romney is some brave hero. It merely means he is a politician who sees an America that finally recognizes how much its tax system is skewed toward the wealthy. In such a country, expedience is thankfully no longer synonymous with anti-tax demagoguery. It is, instead, congruent with a more rational rhetorical posture on tax fairness.

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