As the outcry grows over Mitt Romney's shockingly low 15 percent tax rate, his bitter rival Newt Gingrich rushed to his defense. "My goal is not to raise Mitt Romney's taxes," Gingrich declared," It's to let everybody pay Mitt Romney's rate." Of course, as with his marriage vows, Newt isn't telling the truth. As it turns out, Gingrich has proposed a new capital gains tax rate - zero - that would almost eliminate Mitt Romney's already meager payment to Uncle Sam.

In South Carolina yesterday, Gingrich for once passed on an opportunity to take Mitt Romney to task. As ABC reported:

"We can confirm that I paid a 31 percent rate, and although let me be clear, the 21st century Contract With America has an optional 15 percent for every American," Gingrich said at a press availability in South Carolina. "My goal is not to raise Mitt Romney's taxes. It's to let everybody pay Mitt Romney's rate. And so I'm not going to criticize Mitt Romney. I'm going to say, shouldn't we all have the option of a flat tax at the same rate he was paying."

But that's not what Newt has actually proposed. His optional 15 percent flat tax rate is for ordinary income, not capital gains. And it is the capital gains rate which, thanks to the "carried interest" exemption for private equity managers, accounts for the minimal tax bill Mitt Romney pays on the millions he continues to earn each year from his former employer, Bain Capital.

In a nutshell, President Gingrich wants Governor Romney to pay 15 (and not 35) percent on his regular income and nothing on the millions in investment income that makes up most of his cash flow.

Here's how Gingrich's scheme for a budget-busting payout works for denizens of the gilded class like Mitt Romney. Like his former rival turned supporter Rick Perry, taxpayers could choose to pay an optional flat tax rate (15 percent in Newt's case, 20 percent in Perry's proposal). The corporate tax rate would be slashed from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. Like, Perry, Gingrich would eliminate the capital gains tax altogether. (As the Washington Post recently explained the impact of the already historically low 15% capital gains tax rate, "Over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent of the people; about half of all the capital gains have gone to the wealthiest 0.1 percent.")

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While the Occupy Wall Street movement and a shocking report from the Congressional Budget Office have shone a bright spotlight on America's record income inequality, the GOP's 2012 presidential field is proposing massive new tax cuts certain to expand that Grand Canyon-sized gap between the fabulously rich and everyone else. Of course, the gilded-class giveaways from Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are just the latest chapters in the GOP's decade-long campaign of upward income redistribution. As a quick glance at the plans of George W. Bush, John McCain and Paul Ryan shows, winner-take-all tax cuts have long been the defining feature of the Republican Party.

Rick Perry

Five days after reporting "GOP presidential candidates' tax plans would benefit the rich," the McClatchy Papers detailed the Texas Governor Rick Perry's pay day for plutocrats.

As McClatchy explained the chart above:

Rick Perry's proposed optional flat tax would be a windfall for wealthier Americans, giving millionaires an average tax cut of $637,418, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Research Center released Monday.

While the tax cuts would be greatest at the top of the income scale, Perry's proposal would give all taxpayers at least some tax cut, according to the analysis. Those making less than $10,000, for example, would get an average tax cut of $28.

It's no wonder that when John Harwood said on CNBC that the richest Americans would get back "hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars" annually from the U.S. Treasury courtesy of Perry's tax plan, the Governor replied, "I don't care about that."

Which is quite evident from Perry's plan. His optional 20 percent flat tax rate would allow the top income earners to pay Uncle Sam at a much lower rate than the already low 35 percent level they pay currently. And Perry would not merely eliminate the estate tax, he would zero out the capital gains tax as well.

Which is also why Perry's reward for the rich would cost the Treasury an estimated $995 billon a year in lost revenue. Despite his balanced budget pledge, Perry claims that red ink is no problem. "There's nothing wrong," he said, "with lower revenue."

Herman Cain

As James Fallows pointed out Tuesday, Herman Cain's taxpayer-funded payback to the rich also runs off the page.

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Republican tool.

That's the kindest term I can use for David Gregory and his perceived responsibilities as the moderator of the now 74 year old Meet the Press. There are hundreds of Occupy protests going on worldwide, all protesting the income inequality and the how the system is rigged towards just one percent of the population, so what will David Gregory discuss with his panel? The influence of the tea party on the Republican primaries, naturally.

Keep in mind that at a recent tea party rally they could only drum up fifteen participants. Not fifteen speakers, fifteen attendees. So any influence that the tea parties are having due to their ideological purity and recalcitrance is clearly disproportionate.

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm tried to direct the conversation back to what Americans actually care about.

So this, to me, is driving me absolutely crazy. This income inequality issue which the president is trying to get at with the Buffett Rule, it’s not going to take care of it all. But 80% of the revenue growth, of the growth in income went to the top 1% over the past thirty years. Eighty percent. We are seeing a level of income disparity that we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age. So, this is what is going to be, I think, the nub of an issue about tax policy. What’s the tax policy that’s going to create jobs in America, that’s going to provide middle-class jobs here, rather than giving money to corporations, et cetera, where they can just take that extra money, or to capital gains investors and invest it somewhere else.

But talking about gilded ages and income disparity...that's so factual and reality-based. And we all know that reality has a liberal bias, which David Gregory just can't have. So rather than respond to Granholm's statement, he just moves right along, asking Republican consultant Mike Murphy if Rick Perry's flat tax proposal is a winner for him. Because flat taxes are *exactly* the response to Americans' desire for economic equality. I mean, why should we address the concerns of the 99% or let the Meet the Press viewership know how incredibly unpopular and harmful all of these flat tax proposals are? What a tool.

Back when they were teaching gun safety to my generation, there was a term for people who ran or jogged while carrying a loaded weapon. The term was "idiot." And back when we were learning basic geometry they had a book called Flatland that told a story set in a two-dimensional world. It was a place where everything was flattened and the people had no depth.

Welcome to Rick Perry's Flatland.

As Robert Borosage notes, Perry jogs with a handgun and reportedly shot a coyote that threatened his dog. Typical Republican overkill: You can scare off a coyote by throwing rocks at it. And speaking of overkill, the gun-totin' candidate's new flat tax proposal looks like a desperation move, a way to win some attention back from Herman Cain's headline-grabbing economic proposal.

"9-9-9," meet "SOS."

The political types tell us that a flat tax proposal makes for easy the messaging. It's simple, different, and it promises immediate relief from something most people hate (filling out tax forms). Hmm ... simple, different, and promises immediate relief. You know what else fits that description? Jumping off a bridge.

There's been a lot of commentary on the flat tax's policy implications. But what would the country look like a few years from now if it were enacted? Let's pretend that the entire country has jumped off a bridge by electing Rick Perry, and as a result we're all living in a place you might call "Flatland USA."

Let's take a look around our new home.

Bankaneer's Paradise

In Flatland USA, President Rick Perry was swept into office on a wave of disaffection over unemployment and stagnating wages. When Perry's flat tax became law in 2013,corporate tax revenues plunged. Conservatives love to complain that the official corporate tax rate for the United States is "the second highest in the developed world," as Perry put it when he announced his plans. (Our official tax rate is 35 percent, second only to Japan.) But corporations have so many loopholes, and such smart tax lawyers, that the average rate they really pay today is only 13.4 percent. That's less than the average for industrialized countries, which is 16 percent.

In Flatland USA, Perry's flat tax lowered the top rate but didn't get rid of the loopholes. (I'm making that assumption because Perry wrote today that "Cut, Balance and Grow also phases out corporate loopholes and special-interest tax breaks to provide a level playing field for employers of all sizes." In plain English, that bureacrat-speak means "Corporations will get an even bigger tax break now, and we'll fix all those other loopholes ... someday." And you know what? Someday never comes.)

Anybody remember "Wimpy," the old freeloader from the Popeye cartoons? "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today," he'd say. In Rick Perry's Flatland, Tuesday never comes - and his tax plan is "wimpy" on corporations.

The loss of corporate taxes in Flatland starved the government of the revenue it needed to provide basic services.

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Back in August, Americans learned that among Rick Perry's miserable grades in college was a "D" in "Principles of Economics." Now we know why. His contribution to the GOP's flat tax one-upsmanship not only fails to simply the U.S. tax code. As it turns out, Governor Perry's "Cut, Balance and Grow" scheme would undermine Social Security, produce mountains of debt and require draconian spending cuts, all while ensuring a massive windfall for the wealthy.

On that last point, the Texas Governor is honest and untroubled. At a time of record income inequality, Perry told CNBC's John Harwood he was unconcerned that the richest Americans would receive "hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars" as a result of his tax plan:

"But I don't care about that. What I care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies."

And to be sure, Rick Perry wants to ensure that the wealthy have more dollars - a lot more. His optional 20% flat tax rate would allow the top income earners to pay Uncle Sam at a much lower rate than the already low 35% level they pay currently. And Perry would not merely eliminate the estate tax, he would zero out the capital gains tax as well. As the Washington Post recently explained, "For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are better than any Christmas gift":

While it's true that many middle-class Americans own stocks or bonds, they tend to stash them in tax-sheltered retirement accounts, where the capital gains rate does not apply. By contrast, the richest Americans reap huge benefits. Over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent of the people; about half of all the capital gains have gone to the wealthiest 0.1 percent.

While Perry's plan delivers a gargantuan payday for the gilded class, it fails in its supposed objective to simplify the tax code. After all, by "giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate," taxpayers need to figure out their own return twice in order to decide which options benefits them most. And the lower payments they would choose to make, combined with the loss of revenue from the estate tax, the capital gains tax and a corporate tax slashed from 35 percent to 20 percent, means that Rick Perry's would literally drain trillions from the U.S. Treasury in the decades to come.

But like his windfall for the wealthy, that's OK with Rick Perry, too.

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