Monday, August 09, 2010

Brookings & Urban Institute Defend Ryan's Roadmap!

Both Brookings and the Urban Institute are moderate-left organizations.

So when THEY defend Paul Ryan's plan (against the very much less-than-honest Krugman), you know that Ryan has something good.

(As a bonus, we also learn why the Forbes/elite gang doesn't like Ryan's plan.)

Given that columnist Paul Krugman relied on Tax Policy Center estimates to level claims that Congressman Paul Ryan is a “flimflam man” and that Ryan’s plan to address our fiscal problems is a “fraud,” I think a defense of the Congressman is in order.

First, it is worth citing budget estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). According to CBO, Congressman Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future Act would dramatically reduce the build up of America’s debt.

...Krugman alleges fraud because CBO did not score the revenue side of the Congressman’s plan....Contrary to Krugman’s claims, this assumption is not unjustified. Ryan has explicitly stated that he is willing to work with the Treasury department to adjust the rates on his tax reform plan to “maintain approximately our historic levels of revenue as a share of GDP.

Does Tax Policy Center have concerns? Yup:

TPC did analyze Ryan’s tax-specific proposals and found they would fall short of this revenue goal. For example, Ryan’s proposal would lead to federal tax revenue of approximately 16 percent of GDP, which amounts to a $4 trillion revenue shortfall over ten years compared to the alternative fiscal scenario. But that doesn’t mean that Ryan’s plan is a fraud. Instead, it shows that Ryan’s vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax, needs to be adjusted in order to meet his stated goal of matching historical levels of revenue as a proportion of GDP.

By the way, note the words "consumption tax" in the above graf. Those two words are far more important than the Krugman attacks. They explain the reluctance of the Steve Forbes segment of the Ruling (R) Class to jump on board the Ryan Express.

HT: Examiner

4 comments:

neomom said...

Ryan needs to keep going. The amount of flak he is taking from the ruling class on both sides of the aisle proves he is certainly close to the target.

J. Strupp said...

Don't be suckered Dadster. I know Ryan's your boy and all but come on now:

"Ryan has explicitly stated that he is willing to work with the Treasury department to adjust the rates on his tax reform plan to “maintain approximately our historic levels of revenue as a share of GDP."

"But that doesn’t mean that Ryan’s plan is a fraud. Instead, it shows that Ryan’s vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax, needs to be adjusted in order to meet his stated goal of matching historical levels of revenue as a proportion of GDP."

What? You seem to be giving Ryan a free pass on something that you would never let any other politican pass on.

So Ryan basically says that he has no idea how to cover the multi-trillion dollar shortfall in receipts and that "he'll figure it out eventually" and you consider this answer to be visionary and completely glaze over this glaring flaw in his Roadmap?

The fact is this, Ryan is a Republican. Republicans have a difficult time repealing and/or raising taxes. He'll need to eliminate most of his massive tax cuts proposed for top earners (refer to the Tax Policy Center's note on this). My guess is that (because he's a Republican), he'll say that these cuts will magically offset themselves instead of canceling these costly tax cuts.

You wanna cut government spending? FINE. But stop friggin' trying to slash tax revenues at the same and calling this measures deficit reducing.

As I've said before, I like Ryan and I certainly don't share Krugman's opinion that Ryan is the same GOP hack that we've seen in the last decade. But he needs his tax reform program SCORED. And he needs to provide details. Most importantly, he needs to come up with a better answer than, "we'll deal with the multi-trillion dollar collapse in tax receipts later" nonsense. Otherwise, his Roadmap is just the same old stuff we've seen out of the GOP over and over again for years and years.

It's supporters like you that should be questioning this stuff and getting Ryan to move on it. Otherwise, guys like Krugman are going to have a field day with him (as they are now).

Dad29 said...

I quote Brookings and you slap at me?

Puhhhleeeze.

As Ryan explained in the Milwaukee JS (yesterday's? edition), there are technical reasons that he cannot "SCORE" his plan. He's not un-willing; he's un-able due to the structure of Gummint.

And a consumption tax DOES hit "the rich" far harder than "the average" or "the poor."

Get with the news, fella.

J. Strupp said...

Huh? We must have read different op-eds then because Ryan just said that it's not CBO's jurisdiction so they should just use historical averages. The rest of it was just political mumbo jumbo.

Bottom line: his tax reforms, reviewed by TPC, don't add up.....at all. Not even close.

That's a big problem he needs to resolve.