The budget proposal House Budget Committee Chairman  Paul Ryan (R-WI) released last week  is, essentially, an effort to have low- and middle-class households bear the entire burden of closing the fiscal gap and bear the costs of financing an additional tax cut for high income households.  The Tax Policy Center (which I co-direct) analyzed the [...]

No surprise here, but the tax cuts in Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget plan would result in huge benefits for high-income people and very modest—or no— benefits for low income working households, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. TPC looked only at the tax reductions in Ryan’s plan, which also included offsetting–but unidentified–cuts [...]

Paul Ryan may not have intended it, but his 2013 budget is the strongest argument I’ve seen for why any serious fiscal plan must include new revenues. It’s far more convincing than partisan Democratic complaints. Ryan says he wants to balance the budget only by cutting spending. But he proved with hard, relatively specific numbers [...]

I am weary of mystery meat.  The latest serving was dished out today by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), who released a fiscal plan that airily promises both trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a nearly balanced budget within a decade, but never says how he’d get there. Ryan isn’t saying that [...]

There is lots we still don’t know about GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s tax and budget plan. But I am pretty sure of one thing: The proposal he released today would result in a massive tax cut and, combined with his vow to balance the federal budget by 2020, implies huge reductions in federal spending.  Perry, [...]

I should be doing my taxes, but instead I’m writing this column. When I’m done with that, maybe I’ll do some ironing. I’d do anything to postpone tax filing. It’s just so darn complicated! Ironically, perhaps, I’m something of a tax expert. I was a top tax official in President Clinton’s Treasury Department and cofounded [...]

If you view a budget as a vision of government, the House GOP’s fiscal map unveiled today charts a profound course correction for Washington and its relationships with both its citizens and the states. In this new world, individuals and families would receive only limited assistance from government in times of stress, but they also might [...]

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has responded to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the revenue portion of his Roadmap for America's Future. TPC found Ryan's major tax restructuring would likely raise significantly less revenue than he expected and would substantially lower taxes for high-earners. In his response, Ryan suggests he'd be willing to adjust his plan to hit his revenue target of 19 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Here is his response:

In his provocative Roadmap for America’s Future, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) figures that his broad tax code overhaul would eventually generate about 19 percent of Gross Domestic Product in revenues. But the Ryan plan would produce hundreds of billions of dollars-a-year less than that—about 16.8 percent of GDP—a decade from now, according to new Tax Policy Center estimates. Moreover, the plan would give a huge tax cut to the wealthy, while cutting taxes by little or nothing (and in some cases even raising taxes) for low- and middle-income people.