Dems Go After ‘Hocus Pocus’ In Ryan Budget
SAHIL KAPUR MARCH 14, 2013, 10:40 AM
Senate Democrats issued a report Thursday seeking to highlight dubious arithmetic in the budget proposal unveiled this week by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
The memo — cheekily titled “Paul Ryan’s Hocus Pocus Budget” with a photo of a magician on the cover — shines a light on five problematic elements of Ryan’s plan. It offers a glimpse into how Senate Democrats will seek to discredit Ryan’s proposal as they advance their first budget resolution in four years, which does not purport to balance the federal budget but seeks to lower and stabilize the deficit in the long term.
One is Ryan’s promise that his roughly $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, attained by collapsing individual rates into two brackets with the goal of a top rate of 25 percent, would be revenue neutral. Ryan says he will make up the revenue by closing tax deductions and loopholes, but has declined to specify any he’d be willing to close.
Citing a Tax Policy Center report, the Democrats’ memo concludes that “the only possible method of achieving such a rate reduction without adding to the deficit would be to eliminate many of the deductions and credits that middle-class families rely on.”
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