Ryan-Omics

(As nicely explained by two worthies far more capable than I, Joe Klein and Paul Krugman.)
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Excerpted from Paul Ryan's Grand Vision, by Joe Klein, 8/27/12, Time magazine:


The trouble with Ryan's deep thinking on issues is that it's not very deep at all. He lives in a libertarian Disneyland where freedom is never abused, where government is an alien entity whose only function is to flummox the creative intelligence of ubermensches like Ayn Rand's hero character Howard Roark. It is a bit terrifying that this puerile vision has become the operating philosophy of the Republican party.

Ryan has produced various plans, proposals, and two actual federal budgets, and they all cut taxes drastically. This is supply-side economics, the utterly uncorroborated Jack Kemp/Ronald Reagan theory that the less people pay in taxes, they more they'll produce.

In Ryan's 2010 budget, all taxes on capital gains were lifted. By this standard, Mitt Romney would have paid a tax rate of less than 1%. Ryan's proposals replace capital gains tax with a sales tax, or VAT (value added tax), which would have the perverse effect of raising taxes on the middle class and poor while lowering them for the rich.

In Ryan's world -- in Rand's fantasy -- average folks are taxed because they have not had the good sense to become wealthy.
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Excerpted from An Un-Serious Man, by Paul Krugman, 8/20/12, NY Times:


Ryan-omics is and always has been a con game.

On the tax side, Ryan proposes big cuts in tax rates on top income brackets and corporations. The revenue loss from these cuts comes to $4.3 trillion in the next decade.

On the spending side, he proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and aid to college students. Let's be generous and say that all these cuts would save $1 trillion.

On top of this, Ryan includes $716 billion in Medicare savings that are a part of Obamacare, even though he wants to scrap everything else in the act.

Adding up his specifics, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by $1.7 trillion in spending cuts. Overall, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around $2.5 trillion.

Yet Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk? Well, he'd offset his tax cuts by eliminating tax deductions. Which ones? He refuses to say. Realistically, his offset claim would be virtually impossible.

If this sounds like a joke, it's because it is. It's a triumph of style over substance.

Paul Ryan isn't a serious man -- he just plays one on TV.