Ryan Roadmap Balloons Deficits While Taxing Middle Class, Slashing Entitlements

[Joanne98]

Ever since Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP's top budget guy, unveiled a proposal to slash and privatize entitlements in order to reduce long-term deficits, the media--and even some Democratic politicians--have praised the plan as a serious way to save money. The plan may be conservative, they say, but at least it takes a serious, honest stab at averting fiscal catastrophe. Ryan even had the Congressional Budget Office score the package, and they found that, by mid-century, it would eliminate federal deficits.

But it turns out that's not even close to true.

As we reported a month ago, the CBO's analysis of the Ryan plan was drawn up based upon revenue projections Ryan himself provided. The CBO doesn't analyze the impact of tax policy on revenue, so they were unable to estimate how Ryan's policy prescriptions would actually impact revenues--and just took Ryan's numbers at face value. Turns out, those numbers were pure fantasy.

The Tax Policy Center--a non-partisan think tank--did a thorough analysis on the impact of the tax changes Ryan proposes--a massive tax cut for the wealthy, paired with substantial tax increases on 90 percent of the country--and found that the so-called "Roadmap" would actually leave the federal government desperately starved for funds.

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, "the Ryan plan would result in very large revenue losses relative to current policies."

estimates that even with its middle-class tax increases, the plan would reduce federal revenues to 16 percent of GDP in 2014. Because the tax cuts for the wealthy would dwarf the tax increases for the middle class, the Ryan plan would allow the federal debt to continue growing for a number of decades to come, despite its steep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/experts-ryan-roadmap-balloons-deficits-while-taxing-middle-class-slashing-entitlements.php?ref=mp

That's because what runs up the debt is TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH and WAR!

Unless you deal with that nothing will change.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "what runs up the debt is TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH and WAR"

Absolutely right.

[Newest Reality]

2. Regardless of who

is proposing this, and what political affiliation they subscribe to, it strikes me as the overall game plan for the country, be it by attrition or commission.

That is, if you take it all into consideration and want to declare some sort of opinionated synopsis and prognosis. It works in well with the overall, profit/private mindset reaching its fruition as an overt domination and covert manipulation of large numbers of people in a very precise and scientific methodology.

The natives are stunned, divided, and the shock and awe works well, every step of the way. It is not a matter of if, (reaching a pinnacle of Fascist-style, inverted totalitarianism) but when. The steps are either slow and subtle, or rapid and bold, depending on how the masses sway and wave and swoon in sync with the song being orchestrated and played.

Boos and hisses have never been enough to keep the next jackboot, (designer or not) from falling on the face of humanity as it trods along its usual course of coercive, methodical, enslaving infamy.

Ah, but that's just the blathering of yet another impotent voice amongst the vast heard of human livestock that we have been for countless centuries. So, its just a bleat at the wall from one dispensable commodity in a cage to another.

[Igel]

3. The CBO scoring methodology always has the same flaws.

And pretty much everybody in Congress has figured out how, exactly, to reverse engineer the budget projection they want.

You know the scoring process; you know what to stipulate and include in the legisation, now matter how unrealistic. So you start with the outcome you want and work backwards. Then you hand the pile of steaming poo to the CBO and it dutifully runs through the process to get to your starting point. You then trumpet the CBO's finding as though you've found Jesus' diary with the inscription, "Dear John--My mom might find this to be of some solace after my crucifixion. Loan it to Mark, Luke, and Matthew, but don't lose it. When you meet Paul--you don't know him yet, but I do, one of the prerogatives of being My Father's Son--in about 19 years hand it over to him. Your older Brother, Slick Jesus. P.S. Be sure to assemble in Jerusalem on Shavuot. J. P.P.S. Don't use the "slick" nickname. It's much classier in Greek, Khristos. J."

So TPM has (re?)discovered the standard criticism of the CBO. Standard for over a decade. Yet at any given point, you can find a chorus of supporters temporarily suffering from critique-blindness because they crave the final number the CBO gives. Similarly, you can find a chorus of detractors who suddenly see the light as to the methodology's shortcoming when the legislation or prediction under consideration is politically unpalatable.