Mitt Romney’s tax plans don’t add up. He says he will pay for his $5 trillion tax cut—tilted heavily toward the wealthiest Americans—without adding a dime to the deficit or raising any taxes on the middle class. Independent, nonpartisan experts have called the claim baloney.

As these independent analysts have concluded, Romney’s tax plan would either explode the deficit or increase middle class taxes. In fact, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimated that Romney’s plan would raise taxes on a typical middle-class family with children by $2,000, all while giving massive tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

National Policy Director James Kvaal breaks it down:

1. Romney’s plan offers a large tax cut for the wealthy, no matter how you slice it: Romney’s tax cuts for the wealthy are so large that closing every tax benefit for those making more than $200,000—other than preferential rates on investment income, which Romney says he won’t touch—would still cut the average multimillionaire’s taxes by $250,000. That’s just math. And it comes on top of all the Bush tax cuts.

2. They have no way to pay for these tax cuts: Romney and his campaign have emphasized that his tax cuts would be “revenue-neutral”—meaning no net loss of tax revenue. But if you are cutting taxes on the top, that means you have to raise taxes for everyone else. And while Romney’s advisors said the economy would grow, they ignored the fact that, even when the Tax Policy Center considered unrealistically generous estimates (derived from the academic work of Romney’s own advisor), they concluded that Romney’s plan couldn’t create enough growth to pay for the proposed tax cuts for the wealthy.

3. Romney refuses to clarify his plan: Romney had said that his tax plan “can’t be scored.” Now we know what Romney really meant: that he didn’t want it to be scored. Walking through the details means showing that he is paying for deep tax cuts for the wealthy with tax increases on the middle class. As Josh Barro put it, “If Romney thinks TPC missed something, and he has a way to make his plan work without a middle class tax increase, he should release the details that show what that is. So long as he refuses to tell us exactly what his tax plan is, Romney has no one to blame for distortions of the plan but himself.”

4. The bottom line: Filling in the blanks on Romney’s plan requires a large tax increase on the middle class. Don’t take our word for it—take a look at what others have found:

   
   

   • Ezra Klein: “[T]he tax cuts Romney is promising the rich are larger than the available storehouse of tax breaks Romney can close to pay for them. As such, if the plan is going to be revenue neutral, as Romney has pledged, it is mathematically impossible for it to do anything but shift the tax burden away from the rich.”

   • Wall Street Journal: “A new study released Wednesday suggests that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would benefit the rich and hurt the poor and middle class, no matter how current blanks in the plan are filled in.”

   • Factcheck.org: “Romney has said he would offset the loss of personal income tax revenue (estimated at $360 billion a year by the Tax Policy Center) by reducing tax deductions and credits. And he has said he would do this while making sure that those at the top keep paying the ‘same share of the tax burden they’re paying now’ … Romney has failed to produce evidence that what he promises is possible. And we judge that the weight of evidence and expert opinion is clear—it’s not possible.”

   • Jonathan Chait: “Mitt Romney appears to have blundered his way into a bona fide political disaster with his tax plan.”

It’s no surprise that Romney has refused to give specifics about his tax plan, or even name which loopholes he’d close—the numbers don’t even come close to adding up. But there’s no hiding the facts. There’s only one way Mitt Romney could pay for his massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans without increasing the deficit: Raise taxes on the middle class.

Last night, the GOP officially kicked off their convention with speeches from big-name Republicans like Chris Christie and Scott Walker. This morning, OFA Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter headlined a press conference in the Democratic war room in Tampa, where she shared her five takeaways from the first night of Republican speeches.

1. There was absolutely no discussion of Mitt Romney’s plans for the economy—in fact, there was very little talk of Mitt Romney at all.

2. Instead, we heard from Republican governors about how the economy in states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia is growing under the President’s policies.

3. We also heard false and hypocritical attacks about President Obama's belief that the government should stand behind our small businesses to help them prosper and grow—even from some who are currently benefiting from government contracts and investments.

4. We heard an endless stream of insults and ideology from a party more bent on tearing down the President than lifting up our country.

5. You may not have heard this from the speakers last night, but Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have made their plans perfectly clear. They want to repeat the same failed policies of the past—the policies that led to Massachusetts falling to 47th out of 50 in job creation under Mitt Romney and that got us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan is the architect of an extreme budget that would raise taxes on the middle class and cut important investments to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy. Check out exactly who will feel the blow of the Romney-Ryan budget—then share the facts with your friends.

The second day of the Republican National Convention featured the first day of speeches, but anyone who tuned in looking for solutions for middle-class Americans saw ideology and misinformation instead. Here’s a recap of the action:

• The Republican Party voted to approve its official platform, which includes turning Medicare into a voucher program, outlawing all abortions with no exception for victims of rape and incest, a harsh treatment of immigrants, banning marriage equality, rejecting civil unions, and killing Obamacare.

• Republicans based almost the entire first night of their convention on a false, out-of-context attack.

• Rick Santorum repeated Mitt Romney’s false claims about welfare reform, promptly earning him his own rating of “pants-on-fire” from Politifact.

• Governor Chris Christie closed out the night by talking about his own record in New Jersey. Like Romney before him, that record includes raising taxes on the middle class to pay for tax breaks for millionaires, and finishing near the bottom in economic growth.

Tonight, Romney's running mate Paul Ryan takes center stage.

While President Obama is dedicated to moving the country forward, Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan want to take us backward with drastic cuts to investments in the middle class and extreme policies towards women. Check out this newsreel to see what is in store under a Romney presidency, and then share this video with your friends.