A while back, Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a budget of his that purported to balance the budget. Democrats (the smart ones) who've been attacking this have been going after Republicans to see if they support his budget, because it slashes all sorts of entitlements. But everyone seemed to agree that it at least cut the deficit, right?
As we reported a month ago, the CBO's analysis of the Ryan plan was drawn up based upon revenue projections Ryan himself provided. 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.We need to make a big deal out of this.
The Tax Policy Center--a non-partisan think tank--did a thorough analysis on the impact of the tax changes Ryan proposes--a massive tax cut for the wealthy, paired with substantial tax increases on 90 percent of the country--and found that the so-called "Roadmap" would actually leave the federal government desperately starved for funds.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, "the Ryan plan would result in very large revenue losses relative to current policies."