Romney’s tax plan is Robin Hood in reverse: Obama

Launching a new attack against his Republican rival Mitt Romney, US President Barack Obama has termed his tax plan as “Robin Hood in reverse”, saying it would take money from the poor to help the rich.

“It’s like Robin Hood in reverse. It’s Romney Hood,” Obama said at a campaign event in Connecticut, amid a round of applause from the crowd.

Obama argued that the entire centrepiece of Romney’s economic plan is a new $5-trillion tax cut.

“We have known for a while that a lot of this tax cut would go to the wealthiest 1 per cent of all households,” he said.

“But just last week, an independent, non-partisan organisation crunched the numbers. They went through what would it mean to add a $5-trillion tax cut,” he said.

“They determined that Governor Romney’s plan would effectively raise taxes on middle-class families with children by an average of $2,000 — to pay for this tax cut. Not to reduce the deficit. Not to invest in things that grow our economy, like education or roads or basic research.

“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,” he said.

Obama said this sounds like an idea that’s difficult to explain or sell to the American people.

However the Romney campaign rejected the assertions being made by the US President.

“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,” said Ryan Williams, a Romney campaign spokesman.

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