Are Republicans Even Allowed to Run on Raising Taxes?

The economy confuses

Today was a big day when it came to economic news. First ADP reported the US economy added 163,000 jobs in July, a good number. But ADP’s reports have been trending higher than what the Department of Labor’s numbers have been showing. Then Nate Silver of The New York Times revised up the President’s chance of winning based on positive personal income growth. Then came the kicker: The Fed punted on its last chance to stimulate the economy before the election. This disappointed the market and the Dow closed below 13,000. Put it all together and the jobs report this Friday is very big deal. Although the economy only created about 70,000 jobs a month in the seven years before the economic crash of 2008, the reaction to any report under 100,000 new jobs will probably be quite negative for the President.

Romney’s plan revealed to hike taxes on the middle class

The Obama Administration seized on a non-partisan study that shows Mitt Romney’s tax plan actually raises taxes on everyone but the top 5% of American taxpayers. The shocking finding leaves Romney in the awkward position of being a Republican pushing for higher taxes on the middle class. The Romney campaign attacked one of the institutions behind the study as liberal and thus untrustworthy. The problem: they cited the same institution as reliable in the past. So far Romney’s team only pushback on the actual meat of the study is to suggest that Romney’s lowering of the corporate tax rate would raise wages. So it looks like we’re headed into the home stretch of the 2012 election with Romney sticking with a middle class tax increase as part of his economic plan.

The President is at 50% in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio?

A new CBS/New York Time/Quinnipiac poll shows the President hitting the magical 50% marker in the three most crucial swing states. The methodology of the poll was knocked by Republicans, of course, who believe this election’s demographics will more closely resemble 2010 than 2008. But there does seem to be a trend forming in which the President is outperforming his numbers in swing states as Romney sinks.

The Twitter Political Index

Twitter has introduced a new toy for political junkies. It’s hard to take the comparisons between Romney and Obama on Twitter seriously when the latter has ten times the followers and the former has been accused of buying chunks of his following. But it’s another way to try to know what we can’t know till November.

Verdict: We won’t know until Friday how badly the President needed help from the Fed. So on the strength of the swing state poll numbers and Romney’s indefensible tax position, we have to give the day to the President.