Paul Ryan: Cut taxes first, balance budget later

[DonViejo]

Paul Ryan: Cut taxes first, balance budget later
By Greg Sargent

A number of folks are having fun with Paul Ryan’s Sunday interview on Fox News, in which he declined to explain how the Romney/Ryan tax cuts will be paid for: “I don’t have the time, it would take me too long to go through all the math.” Jon Chait sees this as the latest sign that Ryan will “emerge from the race with his legend punctured.”

But there’s another line from Ryan that is arguably just as revealing: Ryan explicitly admits that he and Romney would cut taxes even if they can’t make the math show that the tax cuts would be paid for.

After Ryan’s remark about not having the time to do the math, Chris Wallace pressed Ryan this way:

WALLACE: If, just suppose, that the doubters are right, President Romney takes office and the math doesn’t add up.

RYAN: First of all, we’ve run the numbers, I’ve run them in Congress, they do. We’ve got about five other studies that show that you can do this.

WALLACE: OK, but let’s assume it doesn’t. The question is, what’s more important to Romney? Would he scale back on the 20 percent tax cut for the wealthy? Would he scale back and say, OK, you know, we’re going to have to raise taxes for the middle class?
I guess the question is what’s most important to him in his tax reform plan?

RYAN: Keeping tax rates down. By lowering tax rates, people keep more of the next dollar that they earn. That matters. That is incentives. That’s pro-growth policy. That creates 7 million jobs. And what should go first...

WALLACE: So that’s more important than...

RYAN: That’s more important than anything. And more importantly, it’s not what deductions are in the tax code but it’s who gets them.

That is as clear a statement of priorities as you could want. Ryan admits that even if the math in their plan can’t work, that even if the tax cuts cannot be paid for by ending loopholes and deductions on the wealthy, he and Ryan would not scale back their planned tax cuts on the rich one penny. And don’t worry, this won’t explode the deficit, because just trust us, the revenues generated by the growth unleashed by the tax cuts will ultimately pay for the plan.

read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/paul-ryan-cut-taxes-first-balance-budget-later/2012/10/01/83313c38-0bf1-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_blog.html

[TexasCPA]

1. Republican tax cut myth again

Tax cuts do not have a huge impact on the economy. If they did, then the economy wouldn't have burst after the 2001 Clinton Prosperity tax cuts.

[BlueStreak]

2. If Paul has already run the numbers, maybe he could just email them

I mean I realize he's real busy with fund raisers and all, and really can't take the time to explain such complex things like 2+2=17 to us dummies, but since he's already done the math, just email it to us and we'll get some other smart person to explain it to us. It won't take any of Ryan's valuable time at all.

I hope he didn't use any irrational numbers in his math. I always had a hard time with irrational numbers.

[meow2u3]

3. Ryanese to English translation

Cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires first, balance the budget on the backs of the poor, sick, elderly, and disabled later.