Mitt Romney's real compassion is for people like himself, whom he believes are America's "job creators." He aims to cut taxes on the rich, in the belief that the rich create jobs -- and the benefits of such a tax cut trickle down to everyone else.
Trickle-down economics is the core of Romney's economics, and it's bunk. George W. Bush cut taxes -- mostly for the wealthy -- and we ended up with fewer jobs, lower wages, and an economy that fell off a cliff in 2008.
In Ohio Romney is repeating his claim that, under his tax proposal, the rich would end up paying as much as before even at a lower tax rate because he'd limit their ability to manipulate the tax code. "Don't be expecting a huge cut in taxes because I'm also going to be closing loopholes and deductions," he promises.
But Romney still refuses to say which loopholes and deductions he'll close. He doesn't even mention the "carried interest" loophole that has allowed him and other private-equity managers to treat their incomes as capital gains, taxed at 15 percent.
What we're seeing in Ohio isn't a new Mitt Romney. It's a newly-packaged Mitt Romney. The real Mitt Romney is the one we saw on the videotape last week. And no amount of re-taping can disguise the package's true contents.
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