Austan Goolsbee: Mitt Romney's Tax Plan and the Middle Class

There's no way the GOP candidate can avoid increasing the deficit without adding to the burden on middle-income earners.

Updated Aug. 21, 2012 7:38 p.m. ET

I once asked a guy who does focus groups where he thought the gap was largest between the views of policy types and ordinary people. He decided it was probably about the federal budget.

Most people just aren't that interested. He said the people who hire him ask about things like Bowles-Simpson (the fiscal commission that proposed sweeping deficit reduction) while the people he interviews mostly think it's a stomach condition.


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