Any number of times over the three Presidential debates, President Obama and Mr. Romney faced off over the potential effects of the Romney tax plan on the American economy and the Federal Deficit. The President has been quoting data saying that the Romney tax plan would increase the federal deficit by $5 trillion. Of course Mr. Romney denies this and suggests that the President doesn’t understand the tax plan. May I suggest that no one including Mr. Romney and Rep. Ryan understand the tax plan and they have even less understanding of it’s ramifications.
But in fact there is a study of the tax plan or of as much of a plan as there seems to exist on paper. And it was conducted by a nonpartisan think tank, the Tax Policy Center and it was released this past August. The basics of the report simply state that Mr. Romney’s tax plan can not possibly provide the benefits he purports…and in fact, the math just does’t work!
From a recent article in the New York Times:
Mr. Romney criticized the center as performing a “garbage-in, garbage-out” analysis and his campaign accused it of partisan bias. The Obama campaign used the center’s numbers to argue that Mr. Romney had proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. Economists jumped on the bandwagon too, flinging analyses back and forth and picking apart the projections and assumptions in the report.
As a programmer the GIGO adage is second nature to me…and I assume that Mr. Romney understands what he is saying…that HIS tax plan is GARBAGE!
And of course the Romney campaign suggested that the Tax Policy Center is biased…but from the same artcle:
The center’s claim to provide reliable, nonpartisan information comes in part from its staff makeup. It has about four dozen affiliated staff members and scholars — most are economists, several are considered top experts in their fields, and a number have experience in either Republican or Democratic administrations.
It also is derived by virtue of its ownership of a highly sophisticated tax modeling system, one that took about two years to build and has a small coterie of specialists to tend it. The model resembles those used by government offices to forecast the effect of changes to the tax code, and it relies on about 150,000 anonymous tax returns and a wealth of data on pensions, education, consumer expenditures and economic growth.
Doesn’t sound much like a lynch mob of economists to me. Particularly given that the center’s director is Donald Marron, a former Bush administration economist.
And right up until November 6th the argument will continue…but for now Mr. Romney and I agree on one thing…that his tax plan is Garbage In!
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