But we have to believe it to defeat it

Katrina van den Heuvel had a column in the Washington Post today entitled "Romney's Incredible Extremes".  She has the thesis that no one is believing the lies that Mitt Romney is telling every day because it is somewhat impossible to believe that anyone could be an actual President of the United States and actually support such ludicrously outlandish and extreme positions.

But the thing is -- he does.  And she makes that point repeatedly.

She makes it well here (and I provide various emphases):

"Under the best (and most improbable) of circumstances — that the Congress decided to completely  eliminate tax expenditures for those making over $200,000 before reducing any of the benefits to those making under that amount — the study found that Romney’s tax plan would transfer a staggering $86 billion in tax burden from those making over $200,000 to those making under that amount. Millionaires would pocket an average tax cut of $87,000 while everyone else would suffer a tax hike of $500 a year.

That’s because to make up for the lost income, Congress would have to cut the mortgage deduction, the deduction for gifts to charity, the deduction for employer based health care, the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credit that goes to middle- and lower-income earners. But simply eliminating these and other tax breaks for the rich doesn’t generate enough revenue. So the people who really take it in the teeth are middle-income earners — small business people, middle management and professionals. It is, the study concluded, “not mathematically possible” to lower tax rates as Romney proposes without giving the rich a tax break and working and middle-income people a tax hike."

"But as the Priorities crowd discovered, voters have a hard time believing any politician could be supporting 20 percent cuts in education, an elimination of the refundable tax credit for children or dramatically changing Medicare. That is simply too extreme to be believed."

The thing is, Romney is too much of a candidate to know exactly what he's supporting (the Ryan plan).  The ideologues pushing the plan are the hardliners in the House, led by Boehner and Cantor. 


"As Grover Norquist says, the House will drive the agenda and Romney will sign anything that emerges from the Senate."

And that is the fear of all who are rational in this country.