Newt Gingrich Nails Mitt Romney’s Left-Wing Class Warfare Tax Plan

While the mainstream media has been focused on the class warfare implications of Mitt Romney’s $10,000 challenge to Texas Governor Rick Perry during Saturday’s Republican presidential debate at Drake University, they appear to have missed an even more important clash on class between Romney and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- one that put Romney squarely in the same class warfare camp as President Barack Obama.

In discussing how to create jobs and get the American economy growing again, Gingrich outlined a bold tax reduction plan: “I would start with zero capital gains, hundreds of billions of dollars would pour into the country, I'd go to 12.5% corporate tax rate, that would bring in at least $700 billion in repatriated money back from overseas. I would then go to 100% expensing for all new equipment… and I'd abolish the death tax penalty. Those steps would begin to dramatically create jobs.”

Note that Gingrich’s plan does not limit these tax incentives to any tax bracket or income level. They are “come one, come all” applied to all taxpayers, even the ones with incomes above $250,000 that Obama loves to hate.

Romney was quick to distinguish himself from Gingrich and endorse the Obama way of thinking, “His [Gingrich’s] plan in capital gains, to remove capital gains for people -- at the very highest level of income is different than mine. I'd-- I'd-- eliminate capital gains, interest, and dividends for people in middle income.”

In other words, according to Romney and Obama’s way of thinking, taxes aren’t paid merely to fund the constitutional functions of government or even for non-conservative social reasons (like discouraging smoking by raising cigarette taxes or encouraging homeownership through the mortgage interest deduction).  To Romney and Obama, taxes are also to be paid so that the government can collect and redistribute money from those “at the very highest level of income.”

When media panelist and former Clinton White House spokesman George Stephanopoulos came back to Gingrich and offered him the opportunity to backtrack and join Romney, Gingrich instead nailed Romney for thinking like Obama, “You wanna create jobs. A $200,000 cap on or capital gains tax cut is lower than Obama.”

That’s right -- Mitt Romney’s economic plan is actually less generous to investors and job creators than Barack Obama’s.

Romney supporters and Washington’s inside-the-Beltway pundits who keep wondering why Gingrich is rising and Romney can’t break the twenty-percent barrier need look no further than that very revealing exchange.  Conservatives simply won’t support a candidate who claims to have a private sector business background, but who apparently plans to govern and tax as an Obama-style progressive.