Mitt Romney - Romney - Political Hotsheet - Individual Mandate Is A Tax

(CBS News) Two days after his or her top rated adviser was adamant otherwise, Mitt Romney on Wednesday instructed CBS News main political correspondent Jan Crawford in which President Obama's individual require - upheld the other day by the Supreme Court - can be "a tax."

"The Supreme Court possesses spoken, and while I predetermined with all the dissent, which is considered above by way of the belief that nearly all this court claimed it really is a tax, and thus it can be a tax. They have spoken. There's not any manner all around that," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told Crawford around a good unique interview, referring to that court's 5-4 ruling of which mostly upheld the actual president's bank healthcare law, using the person mandate for a tax.

"I said this I predetermined with the dissent, as well as the dissent managed to get clear which they felt it absolutely was unconstitutional," Romney continued. "But that dissent shed - it can be within the minority."

The individual mandate is definitely distinctly problematic to get Romney, whose well being attention procedures as Massachusetts governor furthermore included a mandate. But being an anti-tax raise candidate, Romney possesses relied around the fight which with the assert level, governors could tax on mandate less than "police powers" - an undeniable fact that Supreme Court chief rights John Roberts known with his opinion.

Still, Romney's remarks contradict a backpedaling move around Monday through his / her elderly adviser Eric Fehrnstrom. After the advertising campaign had initially hopped aboard using critics indicating the court's ruling indicated the healthcare law can be a massive taxes increase about Americans, Fehrnstrom - without a doubt eyeing probable backlash automobile to help Romney's own beyond mandate - told MSNBC that Romney "agreed considering the dissent published by Justice Scalia which in turn extremely appears expressed that the mandate wasn't a tax."

Pressed by Crawford on whether this individual acquired flip-flopped with calling the particular require a tax, Romney flipped your table, arguing this that us president is the a single that is gone back again on his word.

"You could aim to say you would like had made the decision a new way, but they didn't," Romney said. "They come to the conclusion it was before a tax; that is just what exactly the item is. And the American people know that President Obama possesses busted this pledge he made. He explained he would not bring up fees about middle-income Americans, without only would your dog raise your $500 thousand that was previously while in the bill, it is really now clear of which his / her mandate, when referred to by this Supreme Court, is often a tax."

Watch much more involving Jan Crawford's meeting with Mitt Romney Wednesday nighttime to the "CBS Evening News along with Scott Pelley" (6:30 p.m. EST) plus Thursday on "CBS This Morning" (7 a.m. EST).