President Barack Obama told cheering supporters at a fundraiser in Connecticut on Monday that Mitt Romney's tax plan would raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for a tax cut benefiting the very rich: "It's like Robin Hood in reverse. It's Romney Hood." His remarks drew laughter and applause.
Obama pointed to a recent study of Romney's approach by the independent Tax Policy Center that speculated that, to pay for his proposed tax cut on the wealthiest Americans, the former Massachusetts governor would have to end popular measures like the mortgage and child deductions and the Earned Income Tax Credit—which chiefly benefit middle-class and poor Americans.
"He'd ask the middle class to pay more in taxes so that he could give another $250,000 tax cut to people making more than $3 million a year," Obama said.
"They have tried to sell us this trickle-down, tax-cut fairy dust before. And guess what? It does not work. It didn't work then, it won't work now," the president said. "It's not a plan to create jobs, it's not a plan to reduce our deficit, and it is not a plan to move our economy forward."
Obama's reference to the legendary mythical noble-turned-outlaw was part of an aggressive effort to counter the Republican's attacks on the president's greatest vulnerability—the ailing economy, still sputtering three and a half years after he took office.
"We do not need—I do not need—a tax cut," the president said.
The Romney campaign responded to Obama's remarks by redoubling its attacks on the president's record.
"President Obama recently said the biggest regret of his first term was not telling better stories. He's trying to make up for it now, but his stories just aren't true," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. "Mitt Romney has a plan for a stronger middle class—and, unlike President Obama, a record of accomplishment behind it."