Well, of course Romney's new tax numbers don't add up.

Romney's plan has gone through several iterations, but through it all the the basic contours and basic impracticality have stayed the same. As I have described it before, Romney's plan is a three-legged stool that doesn't stand. He wants to 1) cut tax rates by 20 percent across the board; 2) fully pay for these tax rate cuts by cutting tax expenditures; and 3) cut taxes for the middle class without reducing the tax burden of the rich.

This is all kinds of impossible. For one, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center pointed out there aren't enough tax expenditures for the rich to pay for Romney's tax rate cuts for the rich -- in other words, his plan couldn't help but reduce high-end taxes. Romney would have to either abandon his tax cuts for the rich, raise taxes on the middle class, or explode the deficit. The latter seemed most likely given Romney's refusal to name a single expenditure he would eliminate -- although he had previously hinted at a few -- before he switched tacks. Romney's new plan is to cap household expenditures rather than cut specific expenditures.