"The 6 Studies Paul Ryan Cited Prove Mitt Romney's Tax Plan Is Impossible"

The 6 Studies Paul Ryan Cited Prove Mitt Romney's Tax Plan Is Impossible

by Matthew O'Brien at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/romneys-tax-plan-had-a-bad-night/263541/

"SNIP................................................

1. Harvey Rosen paper. Rosen, a professor at Princeton, assumed Romney's lower tax rates would kickstart enough growth to pay for the revenue hole those lower tax rates would create. This seems dubious. Alan Viard and Alex Brill of the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have argued that it seems unlikely revenue neutral tax reform would have big growth effects -- incentives don't change much if taxes don't even if tax rates do. And besides, the Tax Policy Center used aggressive growth estimates from Romney adviser Greg Mankiw's work to test Romney's plan. It still didn't add up.

2. Marty Feldstein Wall Street Journal op-ed. Former Reagan adviser and current Harvard professor Feldstein argued Romney's plan works if you assume growth would be much stronger and if you define middle class as households making less than $100,000 rather than households making less than $200,000. This latter figure is the one Romney has used when he has said his plan would not raise taxes on the middle class.

3. Marty Feldstein blog post. Feldstein was less aggressive with his growth estimates this time, but he stuck with his definition of middle class as households making less than $100,000. He also assumed Romney might cut tax preferences for employer health-insurance, make municipal bond interest taxable, and eliminate the child tax credit for households making more than $100,000.

4. Matt Jensen blog post at AEI. He argued Romney might cut tax preferences for municipal bonds and life insurance buildups. But this might go against Romney's promise not to cut tax preferences for savings and investment -- and would only pay for half of Romney's revenue hole, according to the Tax Policy Center.

..............................................SNIP"