Romney Ad Has New Take on Whether Obama Raised Taxes

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Mitt Romney seems to have changed his mind about whether President Obama has already raised taxes.

At an event last month with Paul D. Ryan, Mr. Romney asserted â€" oddly, for him - that Mr. Obama had not increased taxes during his first term.

“I admit this,” Mr. Romney said. “He has one thing he did not do in his first four years, he's said he's going to do in his next four years, which is to raise taxes.”

But in a new television ad, Mr. Romney says exactly the opposite. The ad, titled “Already Has,” asks the question: “Who will raise taxes on the middle class?” An announcer provides the answer.

“Barack Obama and the liberals already have,” she says as the ad shows a picture of the president hugging Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former Democratic House speaker.

The ad asserts that Americans will pay higher taxes and higher pri ces for medicine because of Mr. Obama's health care overhaul. And it goes on to say that Democrats want to raise taxes by an additional $1 trillion, including on the middle class.

Mr. Romney's campaign appears to be basing the claim of higher health care taxes on the idea that the individual mandate included in the overhaul is a tax. The Supreme Court found the mandate constitutional by saying it was authorized as part of the government's taxing authority - a decision that Mr. Romney said at the time he disagreed with.

The ad - which Mr. Romney says at the end he approves - is the first to use the Republican campaign's new slogan. It concludes: “We can't afford four more years.” It was not immediately clear where the ad was running.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he lowered taxes on the middle class during his tenure, pointing to the payroll tax cut and other reductions as evidence of his commitment to keeping taxes low for most Americans.

In an interview on “60 Minutes” on CBS last month, Mr. Obama said that the accusations from Mr. Romney and his Republican allies amounted to “a lot of rhetoric, but there aren't a lot of facts supporting it. Taxes are lower on families than they've been probably in the last 50 years. So I haven't raised taxes. I've cut taxes for middle-class families by an average of $3,600 for a typical family.”

Fact-check organizations have said Mr. Obama's assertion is “mostly true.”

Democrats are pushing to eliminate decade-long tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans oppose.