I recently wrote about the deficit-busting implications of Rick Perry’s tax plan, and his surprising indifference to them. On Thursday, Mitt Romney’s campaign whacked Perry on this very point. ROMNEY TO PERRY: DEFICITS MATTER, is the headline of the latest release from Mitt’s Boston headquarters, which cites a slew of commentary noting the cost of Perry’s plan. Leaving aside the fact that Romney himself favors extending the budget-busting Bush tax cuts, it’s a smart line of attack–in relative terms, Perry is more vulnerable than Romney on this score– even if Perry tries to refute the charge. (Perry doesn’t dispute that his optional 20% flat-ish tax plan–what a mouthful!–will cost the government a huge amount of revenue; he simply claims he’ll enact improbably gigantic, though mostly unspecified, spending cuts.)
But the Romney camp takes this theme a step farther, introducing a new line of attack: that Texas ran up a big deficit under Perry, one that he “covered up” through stimulus funds, creative accounting and painful cuts. (For details on that, see this Bloomberg story, which says Perry relied on “a combination of deep cuts,” including a $5 billion chop from the state’s public school budget, “and audacious gimmickry.”) It’s a reminder that, while we’ve heard plenty about Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts record, Perry’s tenure in Austin hasn’t drawn much scrutiny. If and when the black walnut ice cream finally melts into a gooey puddle under the heat of the kleig lights, that’s likely to change. And that story is a good deal more complicated than the creation of one million Texas jobs. Stay tuned.