Clive Crook Doesn't Do His Homework... (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)
Clive Crook:
Republicans and the politics of No: the question remains, what will Republicans do with their political power if they get it back? The answer is mostly silence. I say mostly, because the party is not entirely without thinkers or ideas. But in some ways the exceptions only underline the point. One of the most interesting politicians in the House is Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the budget committee. He recently published a budget proposal, and had it scored (insofar as it could be), by the independent Congressional Budget Office. It was a much better budget than the one produced by the administration because, unlike the official version, it proposed a way to bring public debt under control...
Howard Gleckman read the CBO letter on Ryan's proposal:
Assume a Can Opener: Word is getting around that CBO has blessed a major budget reform plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) as, in the words of National Review Online, “a roadmap to solvency.” It isn’t true.... [T]his confusion is due to a letter written on Jan. 27 from CBO director Doug Elmendorf to Ryan.... But, and this caveat is a whopper, CBO assumed this wonderful outcome would occur only if the revenue portion of Ryan’s plan generated 19 percent of GDP in taxes. And there is not the slightest evidence that would happen. Even though Ryan’s plan has a detailed tax component, his staff asked CBO to ignore it. Rather than estimate the true revenue effects of the Ryan plan, CBO simply assumed, as the lawmaker requested, that it would generate revenues of 19 percent of GDP....
On the tax side... Ryan would: turn the current exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance into a refundable credit; allow people to choose to pay either under the current income tax system or a two-rate, broad-based alternative; replace the corporate income tax with a business consumption tax, and exclude from tax dividends, capital gains, interest, and estates. We don’t have any idea what this plan would do to revenues, but in some ways it resembles former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s campaign plan. TPC figured that scheme would reduce tax revenues by between $6 trillion and $8 trillion over 10 years... not exactly a roadmap to solvency in my book...
Other Tax Provisions. The proposal would make significant changes to the tax system. However, as specified by your staff, for this analysis total federal tax revenues are assumed to equal those under CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario (which is one interpretation of what it would mean to continue current fiscal policy) until they reach 19 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2030, and to remain at that share of GDP thereafter...
