When a tax isn't a tax — or is it?

Romney Campaign at Odds With G.O.P. on Health Care ‘Tax’ 

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, NYT
12:43 p.m. | Updated

The Republican message machine is trying hard to accuse President Obama of increasing taxes on middle-class Americans after the Supreme Court's ruling that the health care mandate is valid as an exercise of the government's taxing power.

But the party is doing so without the help of Mitt Romney, whose own health plan in Massachusetts contained an almost identical mandate.

On Monday, Eric Fehrnstrom, Mr. Romney's senior adviser, strayed wildly from the coordinated comments of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill and other party strategists by saying Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, agrees with Democrats that Mr. Obama's health care mandate is not a tax.

"The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court," Mr. Fehrnstrom said on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown" program. "He agreed with the dissent written by Justice Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax."

(More here.)