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Obama cited a report issued Wednesday by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center that concluded Romney's proposals for tax reform would end up providing large tax cuts to the very wealthy while increasing the tax burden on the lower and middle classes.

Romney's campaign challenged the veracity of the study and blamed the president's economic policies for a still-lagging economy.

"President Obama continues to tout liberal studies calling for more tax hikes and more government spending," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. "We've been down that road before -- and it's led us to 41 straight months of unemployment above 8%."

Earlier, the Romney campaign launched a potentially risky ad challenging the Obama administration's auto industry bailout, which is credited with saving General Motors and Chrysler. (Uh, I thought Romney was now TAKING CREDIT for the auto bailout??)

The Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll released Wednesday showed Obama leading Romney in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, all of which are among the eight or so battleground states vital to either candidate's chances for winning.

According to the survey, Obama holds a 50%-44% lead in Ohio and a 51%-45% lead in Florida, which are considered toss-ups in November. The president is ahead 53%-42% in Pennsylvania, which is rated "leans Obama" on the CNN Electoral Map.

"If today were November 6, President Barack Obama would sweep the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and -- if history is any guide -- into a second term in the Oval Office," wrote Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement accompanying the survey's release.

In a key finding that signaled possible trouble for Romney, the candidates were statistically even in all three states on the question of who would better handle the economy.

Romney's main campaign theme is that the former Massachusetts governor is more experienced and better able to bring economic growth than Obama, and his attacks on the president's economic policies have been relentless.

Despite those attacks and unemployment above 8%, Obama is neck-and-neck with Romney on the issue cited by voters as the most important to them.

Romney calls for 20% cuts to today's rates as well as eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax and limiting current deductions, exemptions and credits available to top-level income earners.

However, Romney has yet to say which specific tax breaks he plans to eliminate, and the Tax Policy Center report indicated the result of his plan would force the tax burden to shift toward lower- and middle-class Americans.

In its study, the Tax Policy Center did not score Romney's plan directly, saying it lacked sufficient details. Instead, the center said Romney's plan represented a number of Republican proposals.

"They found that if Gov. Romney wants to keep his word and pay for his plan, then he'd have to cut tax breaks that middle-class families depend on," Obama said, listing mortgage deductions and health care deductions as examples. "That means the average middle-class family with children would be hit with a tax increase of more than $2,000."

The Romney campaign argued that the analysis was flawed because it did not account for additional revenue that would result from a reduction in the corporate tax rate -- another part of Romney's plan. (But we already know that cuts in tax breaks for corporations DOES NOT cause "additional revenue"...)

"Ignoring the growth effects of corporate tax reform discredits the Tax Policy Center immediately," a Romney campaign representative said, adding, "By not including the substantial growth effects of the corporate side (of) reforms, the entire study is based on flawed assumptions."

Also on Wednesday, the Romney campaign released a television ad that criticized Obama for the auto bailout. Titled "Dream," the spot features Al Zarzour, a car dealership owner from Lyndhurst, Ohio, saying that under the bailout measure, "the dream ... that we worked so hard for was gone."

"I received a letter from General Motors. They were suspending my credit line. We had 30-some employees that were out of work," Zarzour says in the spot.

Romney has argued the bailout was not the best solution to right the then-struggling auto industry, instead advocating a "managed bankruptcy" process that he said is what ultimately happened.

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, said the Romney ad was surprising, adding that the president's actions on the auto industry saved 2,200 dealership jobs in Ohio alone.

Romney and the Republican National Committee have paid $8.2 million for a week of ad time in eight battleground states, which a Republican source who tracks ad buys called the largest amount spent on behalf of Romney so far in the general election media campaign.

Last week, the RNC started spending some of the funds it is allowed to use to coordinate with the Romney campaign. This allows Romney's campaign to avoid spending some of its money but stay on the air as the candidate faces millions of dollars of ads from the Obama re-election campaign.

Romney campaign officials have routinely refused to discuss the specifics of its ad spending or where its commercials are running.

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