Romney apparently just 'pulled this out of his ass' in Tuesday night's debate. Where are households with AGI of $159,000 considered 'wealthy?' In Mitt Romney's world--a world where his tax plan would keep his own tax rate obscenely low--the capital gains rate of 15%--and no 'death taxes' so he can pass along his immense wealth untaxed. Imagine the uproar from the GOP if President Obama had declared during the debate his proposed return to the Clinton era tax rates would now apply to the top 5%--rather than the top 2%--$250,000. It seems as if Romney will indeed say anything to win, and apparently without giving much thought to what he's actually proposing.

MR. ROMNEY: (Chuckles.) You’re absolutely right. You heard what I said about my tax plan. The top 5 percent will continue to pay 60 percent, as they do today. I’m not looking to cut taxes for wealthy people. I am looking to cut taxes for middle-income people.

~MS. CROWLEY: Governor, let me ask the president something about what you just said. The governor says that he is not going to allow the top 5 percent — I believe is what he said — to have a tax cut, that it will all even out, that what he wants to do is give that tax cut to the middle class. Settled?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, it’s not settled. (Chuckles.) Look, the cost of lowering rates for everybody across the board 20 percent, along with what he also wants to do in terms of eliminating the estate tax, along what he wants to do in terms of corporates changes in the tax code — it costs about $5 trillion. Governor Romney then also wants to spend $2 trillion on additional military programs, even though the military’s not asking for them. That’s $7 trillion. He also wants to continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. That’s another trillion dollars. That’s $8 trillion.

Now, what he says is he’s going to make sure that this doesn’t add to the deficit, and he’s going to cut middle-class taxes. But when he’s asked, how are you going to do it, which deductions, which loopholes are you going to close, he can’t tell you. The — the fact that he only has to pay 14 percent on his taxes when a lot of you are paying much higher — you know, he’s already taken that off the board. Capital gains are going to continue to be at a low rate, so we — we’re not going to get money that way. We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics, beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, in terms of how he pays for that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/us/politics/transcript-of-the-second-presidential-debate-in-hempstead-ny.html?pagewanted=all