“On the tax front,” writes Mitt Romney in a New York Times op-ed, “it’s time for rich people like me to pay more.”

Here’s my personal invitation to Romney: Feel free to write a larger check to the U.S. Treasury. Go right ahead. No one’s stopping you, or any other rich person who either feels guilty about his wealth or just plain generous, from contributing more to a wasteful, disastrous, and largely unconstitutional federal budget.

Romney’s not the governor of Massachusetts anymore. He’s no longer the senator from Utah. And he squandered the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, running an uninspired campaign and losing to a vulnerable Barack Obama. He’s just a 78-year-old retired guy with more money than he knows what to do with. Nice work if you can get it.

So, the guy who once called himself “severely conservative” had plenty of time to write an op-ed calling for higher taxes on the wealthy because the federal government needs more revenue to fund its programs. “Typically, Democrats insist on higher taxes, and Republicans insist on lower spending,” he says. “But given the magnitude of our national debt as well as the proximity of the cliff, both are necessary.”

“I believe in free enterprise,” he adds, “and I believe all Americans should be able to strive for financial success. But…” There’s always a “but” with those kinds of statements. “But we have reached a point where any mix of solutions to our nation’s economic problems is going to involve having the wealthiest Americans contribute more.”

Like most rich leftists, Romney cloaks his tax-the-rich language with the “like me” caveat. But the entire Democrat Party platform is built around making the other guy pay for “free” stuff. It’s one thing for Romney to write the check himself. It’s an entirely different thing to be “generous” with someone else’s money.

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Romney’s NYT op-ed is just the latest in a long line of moderate squish Republicans coming hat in hand to the Leftmedia and looking for a pat on the head for offering some conciliatory pablum that makes conservatives look bad. It’s a tiresome genre of empty virtue signaling.

But I’ll give Romney credit for making a couple of important points.

1.) The tax code is littered with carveouts that benefit various constituent groups, and it could certainly be cleaner and fairer. Romney complains about the legal ways very rich people can avoid paying taxes on decades of wealth accumulation, which is true, though not without reason. Capital generation is different from regular income, for example. Still, he doesn’t note that there are countless carveouts for middle- and low-income people, too. Income redistribution is a major facet of federal spending — money taken directly from one American and given to another, often to someone who does no work to earn anything. Greed is greed.

2.) “Programs such as Social Security and Medicare account for a majority of government outlays,” Romney says. Roughly 35% of federal spending funds those two programs. Yet both are headed for insolvency in the next decade. Few politicians are willing to admit this, and even fewer are willing to propose any kind of solution. At least Romney is putting forward some ideas. Unlike food stamps or various forms of welfare I noted above, Social Security and Medicare are earned entitlements — taxpayers spend decades paying into the system with the promise of a return when they retire. In that sense, it’s their money, and it is owed to them.

I’m cynical enough that I just view that FICA and MEDFICA line on my paystub as “payroll taxes.” That money pays for current retirees; it’s not for me. These programs are Ponzi schemes built on the money being paid in now. They are not trust funds.

Typically, conservatives respond to calls for taxing the rich with charts and explanations that the wealthy already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The Wall Street Journal editorial board does this today. Yet Romney didn’t actually argue that income tax rates should be raised. He wants “loopholes and caverns” closed that allow the ultra-rich to shelter their investments.

If a bipartisan coalition addressed taxation honestly with thoughtful legislation paired with even moderate spending reforms, you could knock me over with a feather. In any case, Romney’s proposal amounts to a drop in the ocean.

All in all, Romney makes legitimate points about the federal debt and major entitlement programs, but he’s the wrong messenger with the wrong solution, and he’s doing little beyond helping Democrats make their case for the 2026 midterms.

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