Laffers
Most Republicans would have been happy posing as deficit-reducers while arguing for deficit-financed tax cuts. But Ryan, despite his own supply-side sympathies, deliberately drew up a plan for deficit reduction that would work with our current tax code, and doesn’t require any rosy fantasies about how tax cuts will spur unprecedented growth. [Emphasis supplied.]
Wait, what?
Ryan’s assumptions provide the key to understanding his political thinking. He predicts that his plan would bring in more revenue from increased economic activity even while cutting the top tax rate and corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, adopting the supply-side theories that he has subscribed to since he was at Miami University of Ohio. [Emphasis supplied.]
It's the old cut taxes on the rich + ? = Prosperity gnome plan. Get this:
If Rep. Paul Ryan’s newly unveiled 2012 budget is signed into law, this is what Ryan’s economic forecasters say will happen: The unemployment rate will plunge by 2.5 percentage points. The still-sinking housing market will roar back in a brand new boom. The federal government will collect $100 billion more in income tax revenues than it otherwise would have. And that’s just in the first year. By 2015, the forecasters say, unemployment will fall to 4 percent. By 2021, it will be a nearly unprecedented 2.8 percent.
Sounds like a "rosy fantasy" to me. Ross Douthat is both a fool and a knave.
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