Mitt Romney went on Meet the Press on 9/9/12 where David Gregory questioned him about why an independent study found that his tax plan was mathematically impossible and the only potential result would be a tax increase on the middle class.  Romney’s response was that five independent studies found that his tax plan was absolutely feasible.  Politifact decided to fact check Romney’s claim (which we thoroughly debunked HERE) and they found it “mostly false”.  Big surprise – I know.  </sarcasm>

We’ve written about how Romney’s tax plan is mathematically impossible HERE, but you know it’s bad when someone from Fox News says “How can Romney not tell the American people those facts?” which we’ve shared HERE.  And recently - conservative journalist George Will said Romney’s tax plan will only result in raising taxes on the rich or the middle class but won’t say who HERE.

Politifact writes HERE:

Romney is using the word “studies” generously. Two items on his list are newspaper editorials that can be analytical but are rarely treated as independent research. One article comes from a campaign adviser, a connection that generally suggests a less than independent assessment.  That leaves just two reports out Romney’s five.

There is a fair argument to be made that the Tax Policy Center used an arbitrary dividing line of $200,000 to separate high-income households from all others. The same problem lies in setting the breakpoint at $100,000, a choice preferred by at least one of the defenders of Romney’s proposal.

The studies from Feldstein and Rosen use 2009 data.  That was an abnormal year and one that made it easier to make the math work for the Romney plan. The analysts could have chosen other years but decided not to.

The independent study by the Brookings Institute was co-written by a former Bush administration official and you can find more information on that HERE; an excerpt:

Dylan Matthews put together a great graph to explain what Romney’s plan means for everyone based off of income.  Here is what the chart means.  Romney has said that he’s going to cut taxes that will result in tax cuts for everyone but the bottom 20% (even though he won’t admit that).  If those tax cuts are not paid for with eliminating or cutting deductions – then the red bars represent the income gains (nearly 9% for the wealthiest) or income losses (1.5% for the poorest).  If however – Romney decided to eliminate some deductions … the blue bar represents what people’s actual take home pay will be then.  As you can see – the only people getting a net effective tax cut are the top 5% … everyone else has to pay more in taxes to pay for those tax cuts.

You can find the chart and greater explanation HERE:

A full 42% of Romney’s claims that were verified by Politifact were rated either Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire Lies.  Less than 30% of his statements were rated true or mostly true.  You can see that HERE.

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