Last Thursday, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, “the people who need the help most are not the poor, who have a safety net.”

Two days later, his economic adviser Gregory Mankiw wrote in the New York Times, “To maintain current levels of taxation, we will need to substantially reduce spending on the social safety net, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the new health care program sometimes called Obamacare.”

Mitt Romney’s 59-point economic plan calls for lowering taxes, including the tax rate for corporations, and eliminating the estate tax on multimillionaire heirs.

Following the logic of what Romney’s economic adviser advises:

If simply maintaining current taxes would require substantially reducing spending on the social safety net, cutting taxes would require something more severe than substantially reducing spending on the social safety net.

Which leaves one questioning:

If Romney believes the poor do not need “the most help” because the social safety net is working well, why does Mitt Romney support a tax policy that — based on the analysis of his own economic adviser — would require slashing the social safety net?