Did Mitt Romney Just Join Occupy Wall Street?

Embraces the language of Occupy movement to sell his tax plan.

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CHANDLER, Arizona—Mitt Romney embraced the language of the Occupy movement in order to sell his tax policy today, saying he wants to maintain the current progressivity in the tax code, while lowering rates for all.

“I am going to lower rates across the board for all Americans by 20%. And in order to limit any impact on the deficit, because I do not want to add to the deficit, and also in order to make sure we continue to have progressivity as we’ve had in the past in our code, I’m going to limit the deductions and exemptions particularly for high income folks. And by the way, I want to make sure you understand that, for middle income families, the deductibility of home mortgage interest and charitable contributions will continue. But for high income folks, we are going to cut back on that, so we make sure the top 1% keeps paying the current share they’re paying or more.”

Romney also appropriated the term “fairness” to sell his plan, taking a page from President Barack Obama’s playbook.

“The principle of fairness must be preserved in federal tax and spending policy,” his campaign said in a press release. He and Democrats, of course, have a different definition of the term.

CORRECTION: Romney did not say “fair share,” as an earlier version of this item transcript stated. The quote has been corrected.

Video available at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vjpmWpPKYmI.

Source: youtube.com