In the second debate we learned a bit more about the Romney tax plan on which he has been extremely vague. It is still very vague but a few more details were added during the debate. The plan involves a multi-trillion dollar tax cut and closing of unspecified loopholes and elimination of unspecified deductions.

The Romney plan also includes mostly unspecified spending cuts on the non-military and non-security parts of the budget and large increases in military spending. I guess that is related but strictly speaking not part of the tax plan.

In the first debate, Romney added a bit more and we learned that he will not cut education but will cut PBS and he will not add to the deficit.

And then in the second debate, he also promised that the rich will pay the same portion of the income tax that they pay now. And he also said –

I want to make sure we keep our Pell grant program growing. We’re also going to have our loan program, so that people are able to afford school.

One does wonder how he is going to do all these things.

He was asked which would be his priority if he could not do all at the same time. Governor Romney seems to not even consider that possibility. After all, he is a businessman and he would never make a mistake with money.

Below is that portion of the exchange. The entire transcript is on the ABC news website.

OBAMA:…We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood in terms of how he pays for that.

Now, Governor Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and then we’re going to pay for it, but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t take such a sketchy deal and neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up.

And — and what’s at stake here is one of two things, either Candy — this blows up the deficit because keep in mind, this is just to pay for the additional spending that he’s talking about, $7 trillion – $8 trillion before we even get to the deficit we already have. Or, alternatively, it’s got to be paid for, not only by closing deductions for wealthy individuals, that — that will pay for about 4 percent reduction in tax rates.

You’re going to be paying for it. You’re going to lose some deductions, and you can’t buy the sales pitch. Nobody who’s looked at it that’s serious, actually believes it adds up.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me get — let me get the governor in on this. And Governor, let’s — before we get into a…

ROMNEY: I — I…

CROWLEY: …vast array of who says — what study says what, if it shouldn’t add up. If somehow when you get in there, there isn’t enough tax revenue coming in. If somehow the numbers don’t add up, would you be willing to look again at a 20 percent…

ROMNEY: Well of course they add up. I — I was — I was someone who ran businesses for 25 years, and balanced the budget. I ran the Olympics and balanced the budget. I ran the — the state of Massachusetts as a governor, to the extent any governor does, and balanced the budget all four years. When we’re talking about math that doesn’t add up, how about $4 trillion of deficits over the last four years, $5 trillion? That’s math that doesn’t add up. We have — we have a president talking about someone’s plan in a way that’s completely foreign to what my real plan is.

In that last paragraph, Mitt very quickly refused to consider the possibility that he could be wrong and then changed the subject.

Since there has been talk of his Etch a Sketch campaign which he clearly demonstrated in the first debate and his sketchy deal was demonstated by Presdent Obama in the second debate (see quote above), should we call Gov. Romney the Etch a Sketch man with the sketchy plan ?