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One of the ways Donald Trump’s budget claims to balance the budget over a decade, without cutting defense or retirement spending, is to assume a $2 trillion increase in revenue through economic growth. This is the magic of the still-to-be-designed Trump tax cuts. But wait — if you recall, the magic of the Trump tax cuts is also supposed to pay for the Trump tax cuts. So the $2 trillion is a double-counting error.

Trump has promised to enact “the biggest tax cut in history.” Trump’s administration has insisted, however, that the largest tax cut in history will not reduce revenue, because it will unleash growth. That is itself a wildly fanciful assumption. But that assumption has already become a baseline of the administration’s budget math. Trump’s budget assumes the historically yuge tax cuts will not lose any revenue for this reason — the added growth it will supposedly generate will make up for all the lost revenue.

But then the budget assumes $2 trillion in higher revenue from growth in order to achieve balance after ten years. So the $2 trillion from higher growth is a double-count. It pays for the Trump cuts, and then it pays again for balancing the budget. Or, alternatively, Trump could be assuming that his tax cuts will not only pay for themselves but generate $2 trillion in higher revenue. But Trump has not claimed his tax cuts will recoup more than 100 percent of their lost revenue, so it’s simply an embarrassing mistake.

It seems difficult to imagine how this administration could figure out how to design and pass a tax cut that could pay for itself when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush failed to come anywhere close to doing so. If there is a group of economic minds with the special genius to accomplish this historically unprecedented feat, it is probably not the fiscal minds who just made a $2 trillion basic arithmetic error.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

One of the ways Donald Trump’s budget claims to balance the budget over a decade, without cutting defense or retirement spending, is to assume a $2 trillion increase in revenue through economic growth. This is the magic of the still-to-be-designed Trump tax cuts. But wait — if you recall, the magic of the Trump tax cuts is also supposed to pay for the Trump tax cuts. So the $2 trillion is a double-counting error.

Trump has promised to enact “the biggest tax cut in history.” Trump’s administration has insisted, however, that the largest tax cut in history will not reduce revenue, because it will unleash growth. That is itself a wildly fanciful assumption. But that assumption has already become a baseline of the administration’s budget math. Trump’s budget assumes the historically yuge tax cuts will not lose any revenue for this reason — the added growth it will supposedly generate will make up for all the lost revenue.

But then the budget assumes $2 trillion in higher revenue from growth in order to achieve balance after ten years. So the $2 trillion from higher growth is a double-count. It pays for the Trump cuts, and then it pays again for balancing the budget. Or, alternatively, Trump could be assuming that his tax cuts will not only pay for themselves but generate $2 trillion in higher revenue. But Trump has not claimed his tax cuts will recoup more than 100 percent of their lost revenue, so it’s simply an embarrassing mistake.

It seems difficult to imagine how this administration could figure out how to design and pass a tax cut that could pay for itself when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush failed to come anywhere close to doing so. If there is a group of economic minds with the special genius to accomplish this historically unprecedented feat, it is probably not the fiscal minds who just made a $2 trillion basic arithmetic error.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... error.html

It'll work. Believe me. This is a fantastic deal. You're going to be so happy. So rich. Believe me.

Mulvaney wrote:We did [the double count] on purpose... I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting. We stand by the numbers.

Skjellyfetti wrote:Where are all the fiscal conservatives now?

Mulvaney wrote:We did [the double count] on purpose... I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting. We stand by the numbers.

Skjellyfetti wrote:Where are all the fiscal conservatives now?

Mulvaney wrote:We did [the double count] on purpose... I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting. We stand by the numbers.

Chizzang wrote:Frankly I would LOVE for the budget to pass as written
I thinks its a great experiment, how else will we learn what works and what doesn't

I say pass it and let the chips fall

Pwns wrote:

Chizzang wrote:Frankly I would LOVE for the budget to pass as written
I thinks its a great experiment, how else will we learn what works and what doesn't

I say pass it and let the chips fall

Well, cue someone bringing up Kansas.

Pwns wrote:

Chizzang wrote:Frankly I would LOVE for the budget to pass as written
I thinks its a great experiment, how else will we learn what works and what doesn't

I say pass it and let the chips fall

Well, cue someone bringing up Kansas.

Grizalltheway wrote:

Pwns wrote:
Well, cue someone bringing up Kansas.

Do you have a good reason for why it shouldn't be brought up? I'm all ears...

Pwns wrote:At this point I've become more nationalistic than liberal or conservative when it comes to taxes.

I'd rather increase welfare handouts to welfare baby mommas than give tax breaks to millionaires because at least the welfare baby mommas won't take their assistance checks and stick them in foreign investments and banks that will give them returns that won't be taxed at half the rate as the income of the guy making low six figures.

That doesn't make me any less gloomy about the ultimate uselessness of so many of our social programs, though. The left-wing chorus of calling for more taxes for rich people to throw more money into failing school districts that won't be fixed with moeny (for example) is one big reason the idea that more taxes could be a good thing largely falls on deaf ears.

Chizzang wrote:

Pwns wrote:At this point I've become more nationalistic than liberal or conservative when it comes to taxes.

I'd rather increase welfare handouts to welfare baby mommas than give tax breaks to millionaires because at least the welfare baby mommas won't take their assistance checks and stick them in foreign investments and banks that will give them returns that won't be taxed at half the rate as the income of the guy making low six figures.

That doesn't make me any less gloomy about the ultimate uselessness of so many of our social programs, though. The left-wing chorus of calling for more taxes for rich people to throw more money into failing school districts that won't be fixed with moeny (for example) is one big reason the idea that more taxes could be a good thing largely falls on deaf ears.

You are a conundrum to me...
Always fascinating

You could tickle my ass with a feather right now

Ivytalk wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:Where are all the fiscal conservatives now?

Don't get your Rompers in a bunch, Jelly. This is just Drumpf's opening gambit.

CAA Flagship wrote:

Chizzang wrote:
You are a conundrum to me...
Always fascinating

You could tickle my ass with a feather right now

Chizzang wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:

Please go f*ck yourself...

Chizzang wrote:

Pwns wrote:At this point I've become more nationalistic than liberal or conservative when it comes to taxes.

I'd rather increase welfare handouts to welfare baby mommas than give tax breaks to millionaires because at least the welfare baby mommas won't take their assistance checks and stick them in foreign investments and banks that will give them returns that won't be taxed at half the rate as the income of the guy making low six figures.

That doesn't make me any less gloomy about the ultimate uselessness of so many of our social programs, though. The left-wing chorus of calling for more taxes for rich people to throw more money into failing school districts that won't be fixed with moeny (for example) is one big reason the idea that more taxes could be a good thing largely falls on deaf ears.

You are a conundrum to me...
Always fascinating

You could knock me over with a feather right now

Chizzang wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:

Please go f*ck yourself...

CAA Flagship wrote:

Chizzang wrote:
Please go f*ck yourself...

Pwns wrote:

Chizzang wrote:
You are a conundrum to me...
Always fascinating

You could knock me over with a feather right now

Not a conundrum, I'd argue there are more conks like me than you think there are (look at the polls of Republicans who support increasing the minimum wage).

I'm okay with paying more in taxes to support the NIH and clinical trials, scientific research, building more nuclear reactors and waste disposal sites, fixing infrastructure and building high-speed trains.

I'm not thrilled about how much we spend on welfare, but honestly, that's probably actually better use of money than continuing to fool ourselves we can make poor urban kids into star students if we just spend more money on school lunches and pre-K programs and more classroom technology. And it's better use of money than just creating more military supplies and hardware that will just collect cobwebs and rot in storage of some department that has nothing to do with defense.

And despite what you might think, I'm fairly malleable to being convinced of things with data and objective evidence. Probably better than most partisans are.

Pwns wrote:
I'm okay with paying more in taxes to support the NIH and clinical trials, scientific research, building more nuclear reactors and waste disposal sites, fixing infrastructure and building high-speed trains.

I'm not thrilled about how much we spend on welfare, but honestly, that's probably actually better use of money than continuing to fool ourselves we can make poor urban kids into star students if we just spend more money on school lunches and pre-K programs and more classroom technology. And it's better use of money than just creating more military supplies and hardware that will just collect cobwebs and rot in storage of some department that has nothing to do with defense.

And despite what you might think, I'm fairly malleable to being convinced of things with data and objective evidence. Probably better than most partisans are.