Following nearly a week of incoherent and contradictory statements, the Republicans may have finally come to an agreement on whether or the individual mandate is a penalty or a tax.
Or rather, Mitt Romney may have finally agreed to agree with his colleagues in the conservative blogosphere and congress that it is a tax.
In an interview with CBS News, aired on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney reversed himself and got in line with the GOP’s new talking point: That the individual mandate of the 2010 landmark health-care law is “a tax.”
Romney’s statements in this interview contradict remarks made on Monday by one of his senior campaign advisers, Eric Ferhnstrom, that Romney believed the mandate was a “penalty,” not a tax.
In summary, this is how the past week transpired:
Republicans: It's a tax.
OFA: No, it's a penalty.
Republicans: No, it's the "biggest tax in history."
Team Romney: No, it's a penalty.
Republicans: No, it's absolutely a tax.
Team Romney: Okay, it's a tax.
Presidential.
I suppose we should thank the Rabid Right for forcing Mitt Romney to admit that he raised taxes while he was governor. Good job.