Fox News vigorously challenges Romney’s tax cut lies

10/14/2012 5:45pm by 476

Well that was one of the oddest two minutes and 53 seconds I’ve ever spent.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace today, like an objective journalist, chastized Romney adviser Ed Gillespie for refusing to give any details as to what tax deductions Romney will eliminate in order to pay for his budget-breaking tax cut. Video is below.

Chris Wallace then challenged Gillespie on the Romney lie that “six different studies have said this is entirely doable,” meaning, you can lower taxes by cutting deductions, without busting the budget.  We know that those “six studies” aren’t studies at all, four of them are blog posts or op eds, and the fifth is simply a paper from the uber-right-wing Heritage Foundation.  And amazingly, Wallace noted just these facts.

We’d written about the fallacy of Romney having “six studies” the other day:

Here’s Bloomberg’s Josh Barro on those “studies”:

Mitt Romney‘s campaign says I’m full of it. I said Romney’s tax plan is mathematically impossible: he can’t simultaneously keep his pledges to cut tax rates 20 percent and repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax; broaden the tax base enough to avoid growing the deficit; and not raise taxes on the middle class. They say they have six independent studies — six! — that “have confirmed the soundness of the Governor’s tax plan,” and so I should stop whining.  Let’s take a tour of those studies and see how they measure up.

The Romney campaign sent over a list of the studies, but they are perhaps more accurately described as “analyses,” since four of them are blog posts or op-eds. I’m not hating — I blog for a living — but I don’t generally describe my posts as “studies.”

None of the analyses do what Romney’s campaign says: show that his tax plan is sound.

As we’ve noted before, the Romney campaign has been truth-challenged for a while now.  There’s Paul Ryan’s story about how his daughter got her name.  And I detailed a few more the other day:

There was the time he claimed he climbed 40 of the Rocky Mountains.  Or the time he claimed to have run a marathon under three hours.  From an interview Paul Ryan did with conservative blogger Hugh Hewitt:

Yeah, fast is one way of putting it.

And who can forget Ryan’s claim to have 6% body fat.  Or Ryan’s claim to have six studies proving that Mitt Romney’s tax cuts for the wealthy won’t break the bank (most of the “studies” were in fact blog posts).

So it’s always a good idea to take everything Mitt Romney says with a huge grain of salt.  It’s either a lie, or he’s going to change his mind tomorrow.

Print FriendlyPrint
Tags: , , ,


@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

Share This Post
© 2013 AMERICAblog. All rights reserved. · Entries RSS