The political response to the Tax Policy Center’s analysis of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) fiscal plan was predictable, and mostly based on caricatures of what TPC actually concluded. To review: TPC found that tax cuts similar to those described in the committee’s plan would add $5.7 trillion to the budget deficit over [...]

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) fiscal plan promises to balance the federal budget in 10 years, make major cuts in income tax rates for both individuals and corporations, and raise the same amount of revenue as current law. If House Republicans want to do all three, they will have to eliminate trillions of [...]

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a controversial  plan to balance the budget in 10 years, entirely by cutting planned spending by $4.6 trillion. While Ryan includes lots of specific spending cuts, his tax agenda is far less clear.    In some respects, the former GOP vice presidential candidate mimics the tactics [...]

If their leaders’ public statements are to be believed, the fiscal chasm between the political parties is widening. And it is hard to see how it can be bridged.    Congressional Democrats and Republicans have agreed to put off the next budget crisis for a month or so. This is a good thing, especially considering [...]

Yes, political conventions are costly anachronisms. But, with patience and time, one can learn quite a lot about a political party by watching, or reading, what the confab produces. Thus, a few thoughts about the GOP and fiscal policy as Republicans decamp from Tampa: Mitt Romney: In last night’s acceptance speech, he sketched out his [...]

Paul Ryan is often identified as a deficit hawk. And while he regularly talks about the importance of balanced budgets, that’s not what matters most to the GOP’s soon-to-be vice presidential nominee. Ryan’s holy grail is low taxes and small government, not fiscal balance. Those priorities are clear in the fiscal plan Ryan wrote for the [...]

Already, the Romney campaign insists that voters should pay no attention to Paul Ryan’s fiscal agenda.  It is the Romney-Ryan tax and budget plan, they say, not the Ryan-Romney plan. Good luck with that. Both Democrats and conservative Republicans will spend the next three months arguing otherwise. And like them or not, Ryan’s more comprehensive—and [...]