"Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math"

[applegrove]

Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math

By Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/paul-ryan-declares-war-against-math.html

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1. Tax cuts for all! Ryan has found himself caught between his career-long obsession with cutting taxes for the rich and the problem of what happens to the revenue that would be lost. During the 2012 campaign, he swept aside the problem by couching his plan as “tax reform,” promising not to cut taxes for the rich. Ryan’s new plan is just to go ahead and cut taxes.

He tells Klein, “Those of us who live in the tax system want to lower everybody’s tax rates.” If you lower everybody’s tax rates, then everybody will be paying less in taxes, and then the government will have less revenue, right? That’s where Ryan’s solution comes in: He plans to press the government budget agencies to adopt the optimistic assumption he prefers, which is that cutting tax rates for the rich creates faster economic growth. Ryan spent much of the Bush years assailing what he called “static scoring,” which is the standard budget practice of measuring the fiscal impact of tax cuts as if they do not contain magic pixie dust.

As Danny Vinick has noticed, Ryan has announced his intention to change the rules. Ryan reaffirmed that plan in his interview with Klein: “I’d like to improve our scorekeeping so it better reflects reality,” he said. “Reality” is Ryan’s description for a world in which Bill Clinton’s punishing tax hikes on the rich hindered the economy, which was restored to health when George W. Bush cut taxes.

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So, let us review. Obama enacted policies to increase revenue and slow health-care inflation, over the staunch and often hysterical opposition of Ryan, who insisted that budget forecasts showing that Obama’s proposals would reduce the deficit were wrong. The deficit has in fact fallen very fast. Ryan’s response is to deny that any of this has happened, to castigate Obama for failing to reduce the deficit, and to propose new measures that would increase it. And he wants everybody to ignore the budget forecasters because their numbers won’t bear out his claims.



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[Cali_Democrat]

1. "cutting tax rates for the rich creates faster economic growth"

This has been debunked so many times.

These people create their own reality.

[shraby]

2. Maybe Ryan should talk to the governor of Kansas. Let him tell Ryan how

good that cutting taxes works for the budget. He should talk asap though before Kansas disappears underground..it's so far in the hole now.

[ladjf]

3. Ryan has proven himself to be a malevolent, disingenuous idiot. His ability to be

a hero among Republicans is yet another sign of how ignorant the American voting constituency has become.

Folks, we are in deep trouble with mean morons like Ryan become leaders.