The Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire on the first day of 2013, ushering in an immediate half-a-trillion dollar tax imposition on Americans that many in Congress have dubbed “Taxmageddon.” While President Obama and the Democrats try to spin Republicans’ reluctance to raise taxes as protecting their wealthy buddies from paying their fair share, Republicans know better: The last things this economy needs right now are higher taxes on anyone. You can’t isolate the effects of a tax merely to the party to which the tax is being applied. The economic repercussions go all the way down the line — and the neighborhood effects can range from higher prices for consumers to employers laying off workers.

So the RNC had to take note when even a DNC spokesman, communications director Brad Woodhouse, admitted as much during a radio interview (h/t NRO).

“Well, there certainly is support among Republicans to keep the Bush tax cuts, particularly for the upper-incomers, and then they want to go even further. Look, I think that, broadly speaking, Republicans and Democrats don’t want to see, especially at a time when the economy needs all the fuel it can get, don’t want to see us raising taxes on the middle class. So, for example, some of the Bush tax cuts, did some good things for the middle class, and certainly don’t want to see, especially at this time, tax increases on the middle class.”

That’s more or less the gist of what Mitt Romney was saying at an event just yesterday:

“I don’t want to raise the individual marginal tax rate from 35 to 40 percent; I know there are some who think that thats a great way to go after rich people,” Romney said at the Business Roundtable yesterday. “54 percent of America’s workers work in businesses taxed at the individual tax rate — you raise that marginal tax rate from 35 to 40, and you kill jobs,” he said.

President Obama and Senate Democrats want to raise the top tax bracket to 39 percent. “The various proposals to raise income taxes on high-income earners, either by increasing the top marginal rate, closing ‘loopholes,’ limiting deductions, or implementing a minimum tax, would fall very heavily on America’s non-corporate businesses,” The Tax Foundation concluded in an analysis of corporate and small business tax rates.

Right. So, we can all agree that raising taxes is a terrible idea and move on, then? Wait, no? Dang it.