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G_j

(40,366 posts)
Tue May 23, 2017, 11:57 AM May 2017

Trump Budget Based on $2 Trillion Math Error

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/trump-budget-based-on-usd2-trillion-math-error.html

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.
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Trump Budget Based on $2 Trillion Math Error (Original Post) G_j May 2017 OP
Trump seems to think he can still get money from the Russians underpants May 2017 #1
This is just gold-plated trickle down with bigger zeroes. nt procon May 2017 #2
Yep, that's all it is. Cut taxes for the rich and they will invest that money in the economy... brush May 2017 #3
Larry Summers agrees underpants May 2017 #4
just amazing G_j May 2017 #5
You expect a man with a limited vocabulary to get math?? Yavin4 May 2017 #6
Well underpants May 2017 #7
Math is hard DefenseLawyer May 2017 #8
Just ask the people in Kansas how tax cuts increase revenue! KelleyKramer May 2017 #9
They do not teach math at Trump U Gothmog May 2017 #10
It's not an error. It is a deliberately deceptive omission. JHB May 2017 #11

underpants

(182,283 posts)
1. Trump seems to think he can still get money from the Russians
Tue May 23, 2017, 12:05 PM
May 2017

Hey! It's worked for him the last 20 years or so.

brush

(53,475 posts)
3. Yep, that's all it is. Cut taxes for the rich and they will invest that money in the economy...
Tue May 23, 2017, 12:58 PM
May 2017

which will generate growth that will more than make up for the lost tax revenue.

HAH!

They've been pushing that hooey since Reagan and it hasn't worked yet, just ask Brownback in Kansas.

No, better ask the citizens of Kansas because the repugs will never admit it doesn't work.

JHB

(37,133 posts)
11. It's not an error. It is a deliberately deceptive omission.
Tue May 23, 2017, 07:04 PM
May 2017

This is a standard RW Republican tactic: only the big splashy headline matters, critical follow is ignored as whining liberal media bias.

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