Experts: Ryan Roadmap Balloons Deficits While Taxing Middle Class, Slashing Entitlements

Well, we already know the Senate Parlimentarian is a stinkin' librul, now the CBO is too! Who do they think they are with all their 'facts' and 'number' thingies?

I'm amazed at the GOP's inability to create even a remotely reasonable economic policy over the last few years. They can't even do smoke and mirrors right anymore. (Although as it turns out, there are people still entranced by the severed thumb trick so it may not be necessary)

Repukes have no idea how to run the government or the economy. It's been that way since hoover's response to the great depression. They are just clueless.

The primary problem is as goofy points out, the repukes are beholden to the uber rich who line their campaign coffers. Tax cutting, their taxes, does nothing to help the economy or benefit people. Taxing the uber rich proportionately to run the government and help the less fortunate, helps the economy and helps the uber rich make more money, legitimate money as opposed to monopoly money, such as based on triple double super secret credit derrivative swaps which do nothing to promote economic expansion or make money for the economy as a whole. The government needs to be used as a safety net and to build infrastructure to run the economy and regulate. This helps the super rich make more money. Isn't that what they want? Why is that so hard to understand? I just don't get it.

Ryan and Republican leaders say "This plan is a serious way to save money and reduce the deficits." Therefore, the media reports this verbatim. No analysis, no facts, no reporting that revenue figures are Ryan's own and are made up out of thin air, no reporting that middle class taxes go up and taxes for the rich are reduced again. Because that would be harder work, journalism if you will. So, the public hears the lies again and again, and accepts them as truth, and the misinformed and uninformed vote against what's best for them.

As if the Village Idiots will give a good goddamn. Don't you understand? The CBO Has Spoken! The holy CBO, acting under influence of Holy Bipartisanship has said a thing is so and so it must be!

What's that you say? "The CBO doesn't analyze the impact of tax policy on revenue?" Wonk gibberish. Blah blah blah policy blah blah blah. None of our readers/viewers will understand that, because its soooooo complicated, therefore it doesn't mean anything as far as we're concerned. Okay, fine. We'll "balance" our stories by saying "Critics say 'nuh-uh!'." There, satisfied?

I'm still waiting for any republican or conservative to explain to us how 2 unfunded wars, 3 unfunded tax cuts and a 500 billion dollar pay out to big pharma with the pill bill was a good idea? Who thinks you can start 2 wars and cut taxes at the same time? No time in our nation's history have we ever gone to war and not increased taxes....ever! And that clown Bush and the republican party didnt stop there with that lunacy...oh no! They also threw in 3 tax cuts for the upper 5% and a 500 billion dollar payout to big pharma and when they left office, they dropped a 3 trillion dollar debt on Obama and said " here you go, fix this!" Sailor....wanna explain the conservative policy on this?

I was reading an analysis of this "plan" the other day, and although I was suspicious, I had no idea how truly awful it was--it would totally destroy the middle class, an almost complete shifting of the tax burden from the top 1% to everyone else. Elimination of the estate tax, capital gains tax, and massive cuts in income taxes for the very wealthy.
Even the talking heads on MSNBC are fluffing this guy and telling him what a serious person he his, all without discussing a word about what's actually in the plan. Of course he sits there with a smile on his face, soaking it all up.
Oh, and I didn't even mention that he would destroy Social Security and Medicare.

Grover Norquist gets wood whenever he thinks of this plan.

This is the distribution of the tax rates.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/who-do-you-love-part-ii/

So then Just start GIVING the rich money! That'll fix it.

"Ryan Roadmap Balloons Deficits While Taxing Middle Class, Slashing Entitlements"

Well Duh...

It's rather like the metaphor in Ned Lamont's ads from four years ago -- crash the economy into the wall. Results are undesirable. Solve problem by crashing the economy into another wall. Repeat.

Ryan's formula represents the same formula that drove Latin America into an economic ditch; overtax the vast majority, stagnate the economy and let the super rich make off with what loot is left.

Why can't I understand this?

One function of the Congressional Budget Office is to look at how new legislation affects expenditures and the federal deficit. Yet "the CBO doesn't analyze the impact of tax policy on revenue" according to the article.

How can CBO analyze a proposal's effects on the deficit without considering both revenue and expenditures? What am I missing?

Not really surprising. Politicians generally don't seem to understand economics, even when many of them have degrees in it.

Worse, it seems that right now the Republican party doesn't even listen to the advisers that they hire to explain the issues to them.

In the world of academia, they'd call the Ryan budget 'academic misconduct' for making up his numbers and it would be grounds for both termination and a general ban on serving in an educational position for the rest of his life. Why don't voters apply the same standard, particularly when such an idiotic breach of honesty would affect them directly?

Ryan is a "serious" BIMBO (R)
Pretty, without a intelligent or original thought, under the lovely head of hair.

I read this evaluation of Ryans plan last night - it's definitely worth your time - http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114

It's astounding that he's considered a rising star. His plan is a roadmap alright - a roadmap to disaster.

Why do so many people vote against their own interests?

For the same reason millions of people continue to buy Ab machines and diet programs.

"Why don't the Democrats frame Ryan's plan in a simple way that all Americans (since most Americans repel critical thinking)can understand."

I already did. Too bad you guys don't follow the Angry Bear blog. I even titled the post in a way that would get reichnut attention.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/02/republican-roadmapno-taxes-for-oprah.html
"Republican Roadmap: No Taxes for Oprah, Pelosi, Soros"

Billionaires don't get there by taking home wage income, instead they own things and draw income from them in the form of interest, dividends or when they sell them capital gains. Under the Ryan Roadmap all are tax free. Meaning that billionaires will pay no taxes worth mentioning during their lifetimes. And since the Roadmap also eliminates the Estate Tax neither will their children or grandchildren. Ever.

So if you ever run into a Trust Fund Baby cruising through life on money from that trust established by his millionaire/billionaire grandfather you can console yourself that under the Ryan Roadmap that he will never have to pay a dime in tax. Zero. Zip. Nada. If his income comes from interest and dividends he is home free.

Want some simple framing? "No Tax for Billionaires. Or Their Grandkids"

Depending on your political leanings you can pick out your own villain. I picked Soros, Pelosi, and Oprah to torment the wingnuts, but could have picked Kennedys. On the other side you could pick from Peterson, Waltons, Scaifes, Kochs. Either way under the Roadmap none of them would have ever paid taxes on any of their income. Ever. Apply compound interest onto tax free billions and in a couple of generations they own what slivers of the world they don't already control.

Just WTF DOES the CBO score?

A "neutral" party, the MSM always says about the CBO. But if they just take numbers they're given, WTF is their "scoring" worth?

To me, THAT's the big story. Not so much that Ryan is cooking the numbers -- everybody expects that from ReThuglicans -- but that the all-knowing, neutral umpire CBO just uses the numbers they're given?

That is NEWS to me. Can't the Dems give them their own numbers to make THEIR plans look good?

So I'm curious, given Ryan's revenue projections, what would the deficit look like under Obama's plan? Has anyone looked at that? Will someone? I'd love an apple to apple number crunch under Ryan's fantasy scenario. Is that doable. Quick, do this for me.

Here's a question.

I've lived abroad for the first year of the Obama administration. I voted for him, I still support him, although I am a little disappointed up to now in his style of governance.

My question is, are these right wing loonies, like this guy with his kill Social Security, cut taxes for the rich, and screw the middle class plan, not to mention the Tea Bagger crowd, really as viable and significant a political force as so much of the media, be it Faux News or CNN, have been portraying them to be?

Because if the answer is yes, I may just stay abroad because anyone who doesn't think or can't see there is a real element of fascism in these right wing movements is living in a fool's paradise.

So, somebody please, are the media giving these yahoos more air time than they really warrant, or is this movement real and growing?

I'm quite serious here, I want to know.

You write - 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.

I'm pretty sure estimating the impact of revenues of tax policy is mostly what CBO does. I think what they don't do and most economists realize they shouldn't do, is estimate dynamically the effect of tax policy on revenues. In other words, we know that a tax cut will trim X billion from current revenues. But we don't know how the economy will respond. It might not, but it might expand in response, which brings revenues in. The problem with the Right these days is that they trade unequivocally and across the board in the myth that if you cut taxes you can increase revenues. CBO won't go there. But with a few whole cloth assumptions, you can project anything you want. That's why they really don't think they are lying when they say, as Scott Brown did in the Massachusetts election, my plan to cut the deficit is to cut taxes on the wealthy by 25% because this will lead to economic growth and an increase in revenues. They're dead wrong. They are intellectually dishonest. But they really don't think they are lying or being intellectually dishonest.

Seems to me that if the CBO can't score revenue projections, it has no business opining at all on the Ryan Plan's deficit impact -- or the impact of any other budget plans, for that matter.

As for the whining about Ryan reducing Medicare spending, you are aware that the President's vaunted health care plan cuts $500 billion from Medicare spending by slashing what doctors get paid. Typically Congress votes to restore these cuts, knowing that doctors will refuse to take Medicare patients if they do not get paid fees that are close to what their other patients pay. If that were to happen, though, the so-called deficit neutrality of the health care plan vanishes and the health care plan ends up costing taxpayers big.

So either agree that it is okay to cut Medicare under certain circumstances, or stick to defending Medicare without change and admit that the President's health care bill will be a monstrously expensive new entitlement.

If we cannot adequately fund the entitlements we have (SS, Medicare & Medicaid), then it makes no sense to add another bigger than the rest.

Every proposal by Republicans starts with a tax-cut for the upper-class, followed by exploding deficits, and ending with cuts in services for everyone else. It's a winning formula that has worked every year for about 30 years.

Evidently the middle-class has become so small that proposing tax-increases on them doesn't hurt election prospects. The upper class, coupled with the massive and ill-informed lower-class, is all that's needed for Republican victories.

This time is long overdue to make it abundantly clear to the public that the Republican Party's sole mission is to protect the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Congressman Ryan's long-term budget plan is proof positive of this.

The party founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1854 as an anti-slavery party and replaced the Whigs in the 1860s has degenerated into an oligarchal party.

Today's GOP is the party OF the rich, BY the rich, FOR the rich -- and to hell with everybody else!

I say TO HELL with the Republican Party!

Pretty interesting position for a boy raised on entitlements. The Clarence Thomas of Congress