Who Would You Believe – A Lying Sack of Doodoo (in honor of
GHWB) or the Former Republican Head of the Congressional Budget Office?
It’s hard not to laugh at the Trump so-called tax plan. Months to put something together and all they
can come up with is a one page mess. No
specifics, no numbers, just a pandering to the billionaire class. And no, the complaints are not partisan
bickering, here’s what Douglas Holtz-Eakin a
sometimes serious Republican economist
has to say.
First of all on the lack of specificity.
Proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts
and then casually asserting that such a plan would “pay for itself with growth,” as Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, is detached from empirical reality. A real
tax-reform plan would include specifics on how to broaden the tax base — not
leave that hard work to Congress. A responsible tax plan would not ignore the
threat of increasing a national debt that is already on an unsustainable course.
And the old idea that the tax cuts would pay for themselves,
(see Reagan and Bush fils for example),
But never has a dynamically scored analysis
concluded that a proposal would “pay for itself with growth,” and no serious
economist would make such a claim. At best, according to the prevailing
consensus, the positive feedback effect from tax cuts would recoup in the range
of 25 to 35 percent of the cost.
But of course given how Republicans stifle, ignore or just
move too fast to get data, as they seem to be doing with health care reform the
real world may not make much difference. They live in their own world where
budgets are magically balanced and large tax cuts for the ultra wealthy trickle
down and trickle all over working people.
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