When Mitt Romney Talked About White Collar Crooks and ‘Crazy’ Tax Cuts

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As the New York Times notes today, Mitt Romney’s views about gas prices have conveniently shifted in recent months. They’ve also shifted since he was governor of Masssachusetts. With gas prices spiking back in 2005, Romney was eager to show his outrage on behalf of Bay State drivers–and named corporate America as a prime culprit. In September of that year, Romney announced that the state would be watching for price-gouging, which he called “white-collar looting.”

Nowadays, however, Romney is running as a champion of business, and his critique of the problem focuses almost exclusively on President Obama’s policies. What’s more, given that white collar looting is almost precisely how Romney’s primary rivals described Bain Capital’s business practices this past winter, he’s pretty unlikely to resurrect the line.

Incidentally, that same news story shows that Romney has met at least one tax cut he didn’t like:

At the same time he dismissed the idea proposed by House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones of North Reading a fellow Republican who filed legislation to suspend the state’s 21-cent gas tax in an effort to offset the recent price spike.

Asked if the idea were crazy the governor laughed and said “Yeah.”

Romney rejected a similar idea floated by his own lieutenant governor the next year. Does Grover know about this?