Newt Gingrich said Romney lied about cutting taxes. Even better, he said lying is "good politics."
Newt Gingrich called out Mitt Romney on Sunday for backing off his promise to cut taxes on the wealthy after winning the Republican nomination.
“I think it’s clear he changed,” Gingrich said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” roundtable, admitting that Romney had shifted from wanting to lower taxes on all Americans to promising that his reform plan would not lower taxes paid by the wealthy.
Romney’s pledge is to cut tax rates across the board by 20 percent and recover the lost revenue by closing unnamed credits and deductions for high income earners. The net effect, he says, would be to lower the burden on the middle class and keep effective taxes constant on the rich without increasing the deficit — goals that nonpartisan experts deem mathematically infeasible.
In February, during a GOP primary debate, Romney said, “We’re going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20 percent, including the top 1 percent.”
On Wednesday, facing down President Obama, he insisted, “I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.”
Gingrich said Romney’s inconsistency was “good politics” but violates a conservative belief. “What he said is something that, frankly, true supply-siders don’t necessarily love, but it’s good politics — he said, ‘I will close enough deductions that wealthy Americans will not get a net tax cut,’” the former House speaker said.
Are you seeing this, undecided voters?