Economics: Rep. Ryan Responds to CBPP's Analysis of "a Roadmap for America's Future"

Here is Paul Ryan's old reply to an older criticism which is similar to that in Economics: The Flimflam Man.

Claim: CBO was directed not to score revenues for the Roadmap by staff. (pg. 2 - http://www.cbpp.org/files/3-10-10bud.pdf)

Reality: False. In fact, Congressman Ryan and his staff did ask CBO to analyze both the revenue and spending provisions in the Roadmap. However, CBO declined to do a revenue analysis of the tax plan, citing that it did not want to infringe on the jurisdiction of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). The JCT is responsible for providing the official revenue score of legislation before Congress. JCT, however, does not have the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years) that Ryan's long-term solution requires.

Given these functional constraints for an official JCT cost estimate, Ryan relied on its original work with U.S. Treasury Department tax experts to formulate a reasonable expected path for long-term revenues given the tax policies in the Roadmap combined with long-term expectations for economic growth.

Claim: The Roadmap does not bring in the amount of revenue specified to the CBO according to the Tax Policy Center, and therefore it does not reduce the deficit as is claimed. (pg. 2)

Reality: The Tax Policy Center does not give official revenue estimates, and in their analysis admit to significant uncertainty and unfamiliarity with a proposal of this size and scope. The tax reforms proposed and the rates specified were designed to maintain approximately our historic levels of revenue as a share of GDP, based on consultation with the Treasury Department.

Congressman Ryan stands by his numbers, and of course would be open to adjustments in the specified rates under his tax reforms if in fact TPC's estimates are closer to reality than Ryan's estimates. We clearly cannot chase our unsustainable growth in spending with ever-higher levels of taxes — and the purpose of the Roadmap is to get spending in line with revenue — not the other way around.

For more, see Rep. Ryan Responds to CBPP's Analysis of "A Roadmap for America's Future" by Paul Ryan, March 11, 2010, at A Roadmap for America's Future.