Chait Can Be So Adorable

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/what-does-romney-want-tax-wonks-dont-know.html

Jon Chait is yelling at everyone that he can find that the study by the Tax Policy Center showing that Romney's tax plan is impossible is an important moment in the 2012 campaign.

He says this because he notes that in the past, conservatives have sold their tax cutting bunkum by simply hiding the true costs.  Romney - who offers fewer specifics than almost any candidate I can think of - has in fact offered TOO MANY specifics (in the form of parameters) to make his plan workable.

Put another way, because the GOP has been screaming non-stop about deficits for three and a half years, Romney can no longer simply say: "Tax cuts>Deficits>Magical Supply Side Growth>Surplus!" the way Republicans have for years.

The fundamental flaw that intelligent writers like Chait and Ezra Klein are falling for is that factual claims have very little relevance to the moronic voters who have implausibly not made up their minds already.

For instance, the brutal new ad from Priorities USA insinuating that Bain/Romney's vulture capitalism killed this guy's wife is equated in the media with the factually false ad from Romney that Obama is overturning welfare reform.  The anti-Romney ad takes a fact and spins it into an attack that is somewhat stretched, but gets at a larger truth.  A truth that the hapless Romney spokesperson fell into by saying that this woman would have been fine if she lived in Massachusetts (or in the US under Obamacare).  That truth is that Romney doesn't give a shit about the little people.

The ad saying that Obama wants to end the welfare-to-work requirement is simply false from top to bottom. Yet both are treated the same.

Both sides do it.

And therefore the naked mendacity of Romney's tax plan and the ludicrous assumptions that it is based on will be treated the same way as Obama's claim - backed by the CBO but refuted by Fox News "economists - that ACA will reduce the deficit.

Opinions differ.  Both sides do it.

Lather.  Rinse. Repeat.