Wall Street Journal blasts Romney for "tax confusion"

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

/ Getty Images/Win McNamee

(CBS News) Amid ongoing debates over the semantics of a measure in President Obama's Affordable Care Act - and whether a fee some Americans will have to pay if they choose not to buy health insurance under the law qualifies as a "tax" or a "penalty" - Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is taking heat even from some conservative voices over his changing position on the matter.

In an editorial in Thursday's newspaper, the Wall Street Journal blasted what it cast as Romney's "tax confusion" and accused him of "squandering an historic opportunity" to gain ground against Mr. Obama in the presidential race.

"If Mitt Romney loses his run for the White House, a turning point will have been his decision Monday to absolve President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class," reads the editorial in the conservative newspaper. "He is managing to turn the only possible silver lining in Chief Justice John Roberts's ObamaCare salvage operation--that the mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty is really a tax--into a second political defeat."

Romney clarifies health care mandate position

After last week's landmark Supreme Court decision upholding President Obama's health care law, Romney broke with Republicans and sided instead with the Obama administration, insisting that the fee is a "penalty" rather than a tax. The former Massachusetts governor passed a similar health care law during his gubernatorial tenure, which included an individual mandate analogous to the one under scrutiny in the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act. If Romney were to concede that Mr. Obama's law included a tax on the middle class, it could be inferred that he too had taxed his constituents while Massachusetts governor.

Republicans, however, were eager to capitalize on the notion that Mr. Obama's health care law equated to a tax on the middle class.

"Why make such an unforced error?" asks the WSJ. "Because it fits with Mr. Romney's fear of being labeled a flip-flopper, as if that is worse than confusing voters about the tax and health-care issues. Mr. Romney favored the individual mandate as part of his reform in Massachusetts, and as we've said from the beginning of his candidacy his failure to admit that mistake makes him less able to carry the anti-ObamaCare case to voters."

On Wednesday, amid discontent from the GOP over his stated position on the issue, Romney attempted to clarify his position in an interview with CBS News' Jan Crawford.

"The Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation, and it said that it's a tax, so it's a tax," Mr. Romney told Crawford on Wednesday. "They have spoken. There's no way around that."

Romney also argued in the interview that on the state level, such a mandate still qualifies as a penalty, not a tax - which theoretically would shield him from the same criticism Republicans are now lobbing at the president.

"The chief justice, in his opinion, made it very clear that at the state level, states have the power to put in place mandates," he said. "They don't need to require them to be called taxes in order for them to be constitutional. And as a result, Massachusetts' mandate was a mandate, was a penalty, was described that way by the legislature and by me. And so it stays as it was."

According to the Journal, Romney's shift in position only exacerbated the notion that his campaign is "confused" and "politically dumb."

"For the sake of not abandoning his faulty health-care legacy in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney is jeopardizing his chance at becoming President," the editorial reads. "Perhaps Mr. Romney is slowly figuring this out, because in a July 4 interview he stated himself that the penalty now is a 'tax' after all. But he offered no elaboration, and so the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb."

Romney, the article argues, is "squandering" his opportunity to use the U.S. economy against Mr. Obama.

"This latest mistake is of a piece with the campaign's insular staff and strategy that are slowly squandering an historic opportunity," it says. "Mr. Obama is being hurt by an economic recovery that is weakening for the third time in three years. But Mr. Romney hasn't been able to take advantage, and if anything he is losing ground."

Read the full editorial here.

[KPeters_from_UK]

by Yankee_Doodle July 5, 2012 8:02 PM EDT
Romney would be one of the most competent persons to serve this country as President of the United States.

Romney, like most successful businessmen, understand that you must surround yourself with the most competent people available to be successful at anything.

The Romney Cabinet will be the most capable and qualified Presidential Cabinet over the past 100 years.
--------------------------------

The majority of Romney's campaign are directly from W Bush's administration. You really want a re-run of the Bush years?

[KPeters_from_UK]

by Yankee_Doodle July 5, 2012 8:26 PM EDT
Venture capitalists are not robber barons. The notorious robber barons in the US were Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, etc...

All democrats.
--------------------------------------

The Democratic Party of the early last century is completely different than the current one just as the Republican Party of Lincoln is no way similar to today's party.

[marychgo]

Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that EVERYTHING Romney has done in earning and investing his vast fortune is entirely LEGAL. The problem is that, however legal his actions may have been, Mitt is the poster boy for what's been wrong and anti-democratic about U.S tax laws and the U.S. economy for the past thirty or forty years.

Since the late '70s or early '80s, the U.S. has been shifting income and wealth AWAY FROM people who make things or provide services or come up with ideas and TOWARD people who make deals. And Romney is the quintessential deal-maker. But deal-makers don't add value: they outsource and offshore; they strip pension funds of their assets and "right-size" workers out of their jobs; they sometimes make money for their investors, but ALWAYS make money for themselves.

The United States grew and prospered when the middle class grew and prospered, but the deal-makers have been hollowing out the middle class for 35 or 40 years. They don't seem to be able to understand that, no matter how many houses they buy, the deal-makers alone can't create enough demand to get the economy humming again.

THAT'S why I won't be voting for an LBO artist for president in November!

[33maxwell]

Ann is being used as propaganda..

Look, I am just a bit older than Mitt, and was born and raised LDS (Mormon).

Like me, Mitt is old school.. unlike me, Mitt takes this stuff very seriously.

When Mitt and I were kids (Ironically I was born in Detroit, my parents went to the same Church (but not ward) and my mother used to watch some of the Romney klan in our home), we were taught that not only were people of color sinners in a past life, and had ZERO chance of getting to the Celestial Kingdom unless they came back in the next life less sin free and white, but that women were subservient to men.

To this day there is NOT one person in power in the LDS church that is a woman.. NOT ONE.

We were taught that there will be a great Mormon leader in the presidency days preceding the second coming, this will be the sign it is happening.

There is NO WAY Mitt is going to have a minority or a woman a heartbeat away from leadership under his watch..

BEST BET IN VEGAS..

[Yankee_Doodle]

No female leaders in the Church? No women with power in the Church?

Look here:

http://www.lds.org/church/leaders/general-auxiliaries?lang=eng

Of the 15 Church leaders here, 9 of them are female.

[marychgo]

The url seems to say it all, Yankee_Doodle: "general auxiliaries." Most male-dominated organizations call their female affiliates "auxiliaries."

[Kestrel88]

"It is because I say so!"

Come on, people, you weren't sold when your own MOTHER used that line when you were in grade school.

[drclue]

Like all republicans , Mitt Romney wants to promote the concept of selling insurance across state lines.

Remember the GOP is constantly chattering about "states rights". Selling insurance across state lines would make for another industry based upon the model used by the credit card industry.

The insurance industry (just as the credit card industry did) would move their corporations to the states with little or no regulation at all and then (as the credit card industry does) use the US constitution's "full faith and credit" clause to ban other states from enacting much if any meaningful regulation.

US Constitution
[Article IV - The States

Section 1 - Each State to Honor all others

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.]

Thus , out the window goes the lie that the GOP has much if any true concern for states rights.

[ichibandan]

Yankee Doodle, you rhetorically asked good the government has done with Social Security was doing. Well they've done great. Most popular social program in history.All this BS about it going broke can be corrected overnight with a few minor adjustments ; one of which is increase the age qualification to 70- problem solved.

[Lindag20]

I think moving the "goal post" for retirement isn't all that great. But the "salary cap" should be removed as that would help as well as possibly increasing the tax amount a little.

[Yankee_Doodle]

The real question to ask with regard to Social Security is where did all of the money that was paid by employers and employees go? Who stole the money?

If all of the money that had been paid into Social Security was saved, as promised by the government when instituted, Social Security would be solvent.

Where is the money?

[ToPiper]

Conservatives so desperately need a hook like, "it's a tax on the middle class", because they have nothing to offer the American people but the same old same old. Lying's all they have left.

[TimeToEvolve]

A vote for Robmee is a vote for the robber barons.
A vote for Robmee is a vote to continue offshoring American jobs.
A vote for Robmee is a vote to privatize Social Security.
A vote for Robmee is a vote for a war with Iran.

[Yankee_Doodle]

Venture capitalists are not robber barons. The notorious robber barons in the US were Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, etc...

All democrats.

The claim of off shoring US jobs has already been debunked by numerous non-partisan sources.

How good has the government done with Social Security? It is the largest government social program in the world and accounts for the single largest expense of the federal government.

[Yankee_Doodle]

Evidently you failed US history, don't keep up on current affairs, and know nothing about the spending of the federal government.

Educate yourself and then comment.

[Yankee_Doodle]

The problem isn't Romney. He is doing what he is supposed to do, support the decisions of the Judicial Branch of Government.

That doesn't necessarily mean that he agrees with the decision of the US Supreme Court, just as the dissenters among the Supreme Court didn't agree with the majority.

Romney can support the decisions of the Supreme Court, which he would have to do as President of the United States, yet still personally disagree with their decisions.

There is no "flip flop" here. Only a person honestly recognizing the legal authority of the US Supreme Court while personally disagreeing with one of their decisions.

It is a First Amendment right to personally disagree with the government. It is Constitutionally protected.

[Yankee_Doodle]

You can disagree, not plot the overthrow or attack of the United States. There is a difference.