Paul Ryan’s horrible next ploy: Why the flim-flam artist is eyeing taxes now

[applegrove]

Paul Ryan’s horrible next ploy: Why the flim-flam artist is eyeing taxes now

by Heather Digby Parton at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/24/paul_ryans_horrible_next_ploy_why_the_flim_flam_artist_is_eyeing_taxes_now/

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An overhaul of the nation’s tax laws will also rank high on the agenda when Ryan (R-Wis.) takes the helm of the tax-writing panel in January.

Paul Ryan used to be considered a potential White House partner in the Grand Bargain. He had a reputation as a Very Serious policy guy who wasn’t an ideologue and could be persuaded to work with Democrats. This was despite his extremist Ayn Rand philosophy and his penchant for fudging numbers and misleading statistics. Over time it became clear that he was a flim-flam artist and his image took a hit. And then he signed on as Mitt Romney’s side-kick and that was the end of that. But Ryan’s new position has put him back in play and it’s unknown if the White House has any interest in playing with him on tax reform. It is to be fervently hoped at this point that they are not. Jonathan Chait explains why:


[Ryan] has been talking far and wide about how he plans to use “dynamic scoring.” That means the official scoring agencies in Congress would assume, as Ryan does, that lower tax rates dramatically increase economic growth, thus creating more revenue, a belief Ryan has advocated fervently his entire career, even in the face of massive evidence to the contrary. Dynamic scoring would enable him to reduce tax rates without matching all the lost revenue by cutting preferences in the tax code. In other words, it would be the sort of tax-cuts-for-the-rich agenda he has pursued unwaveringly ever since he was an Ayn Rand–reading, supply-side-economics-believing intern.

Surprise. But the good news is that Ryan is pessimistic that even if he and the president were to throw back some shots and come to an agreement that the GOP congress would be able to forgive him for his immigration order. Ryan laments that the president poisoning the well for any more bargaining, Grand or otherwise. If “dynamic scoring” is what they’ve got on the agenda it’s lucky for all of us that he is.




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[WhiteTara]

1. I guess he hasn't heard of Kansas. nt

[applegrove]

2. Yup. They need a new fiction to hide the blatant truth that trickle down does not work.