Romney campaign says Axelrod 'makes the case for Mitt Romney'

Romney campaign says Axelrod ‘makes the case for Mitt Romney’

By Morgan Little

April 15, 2012 12 AM PT

WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod has provided another sound bite for Mitt Romney’s campaign by giving the impression that the current administration isn’t pushing the country’s economy in the right direction.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Axelrod told host Chris Wallace that “the choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we are on, where a fewer and fewer number of people do very well, and everybody else is running faster and faster just to keep pace.”

Romney’s team spared no time in putting the clip onto YouTube, titling the video “Obama adviser David Axelrod makes the case for Mitt Romney for President,” which you can see below.

Axelrod later elaborated on his statement, with the aforementioned road representing “the same failed policies that were so disastrous in the last decade” instead of those of the Obama administration.

Wallace also pressed Axelrod on Obama’s recently released tax returns, which revealed that Obama paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, going against the protocol of the president’s much-touted “Buffett rule” to increase the rates of wealthy Americans.

Obama and wife Michelle paid a rate of 20.5% on their gross income of $789,674. This rate falls between the 30% that the “Buffett rule” proposes that those in similar economic situations pay, and the approximate 14% Romney paid last year. Obama’s secretary, Anita Decker, was confirmed by the White House to have paid a rate slightly higher than that of the president, based on her $95,000 salary.

“I take it that he’s not going to contribute money to the Treasury to help with the deficit,” Wallace said to Axelrod, referencing the gap between Obama’s proposals and the amount of taxes he paid.

“That’s not the way we operate our tax system, OK? We don’t run bake sales. It’s not about volunteerism. We all kick in according to the system,” Axelrod said. “…The issue is that the system permits it and he [Romney] would perpetuate that and he would enhance it.”

As for Romney’s tax returns this year, campaign advisor Ed Gillespie, also appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” confirmed that the candidate would release two years of his tax returns, and that he is currently working on his returns for 2011. Romney requested an extension Friday on filing his 2011 returns.