Proposed new title: The path to more prosperity for the already prosperous Remember how Mitt Romney's tax plan was mathematically impossible without raising taxes on middle-class Americans or exploding the deficit? Well, Paul Ryan's new budget has the same problem'except it's even more severe. Ryan's budget calls for the creation of just two tax brackets, 10 percent and 25 percent, but it also calls for the same amount of revenue as would be generated under the current tax code, which has a top bracket of 39.6 percent. According to the Tax Policy Center, the average tax rate on all taxpayers with income over $200,000 is currently greater than 25 percent, so everyone from $200,000 and up would be getting a tax cut.
To pay for that cut'which Ryan has to do, since his plan is calls for a balanced budget'loopholes would be closed. But absent the same magic that failed to appear for Mitt Romney, there simply aren't enough loopholes to pay for those cuts. Therefore, a lot of people making less than $200,000 and paying less than 25 percent would be shifted into a higher tax bracket. No one has analyzed the exact numbers yet, but it's likely to be a staggering tax hike on middle-income taxpayers.
It's easy to dismiss these kind of numbers as too weedy, but 2012 demonstrated that it's possible to explain the issue in the context of a political campaign. And as Greg Sargent reports, Democrats are planning to do just that. So if standing by his plan to repeal Medicare wasn't enough of a political gift, Paul Ryan has now added a bonus prize: paying for a tax cut for the wealthy with tax hikes on the middle-class.
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