Every time RMoney's tax-cut and federal-deficit plan is brought up by himself or his surrogates, you hear the line about five to six studies being done that prove their numbers are correct. In David's post on Video Cafe, Paul Ryan matter-of-factly states that Congress ran his numbers along with five other studies and they categorically prove his numbers are awesome.
Wallace: Let's assume the math doesn't add up.
Ryan: First of all I've run the numbers, I've run them in Congress, they do. We've got about five other studies that show you can do it this way.
Haven't you wondered what studies the GOP's been talking about? And remember, a study isn't a blog post at, say, the WSJ's op-ed page -- in this case, it's usually an economist taking their time and looking at all the facts as they are and then scoring them. That's how its been framed by Mittens, the Granny Killer and the rest of the GOP, so why would you even bother to check, right?
Josh Barro at Bloomberg News did and wound up calling them out for lyin' about the numbers, which in turn made Team RMoney very cranky.
The Mitt Romney campaign submitted this letter to the editor in response to my Ticker post today "The Real Reason Romney’s Tax Math Doesn't Add Up."
Josh Barro claims to be able to show what the Obama campaign has struggled to prove -- namely, that Governor Mitt Romney’s tax plan doesn’t add up. Barro rests his case on the Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income report for 2009, claiming to apply Governor Romney’s plan to those statistics and coming to the conclusion that his plan, as currently constituted, cannot work.There’s just one problem; Barro isn’t the first person to analyze Governor Romney’s tax plan using IRS data from 2009.
In fact, Harvey Rosen, the John L. Weinberg Professor of economics and business policy at Princeton University and a public finance expert, also based his analysis on the same data but came to the opposite conclusion. Governor Romney’s tax plan works and the math adds up.In fact, no fewer than six independent studies have confirmed the soundness of the Governor’s tax plan. Rather than wasting time trying to discredit the proposals of the Republican nominee, perhaps Mr. Barro and other journalists should investigate President Obama’s tax reform package. Or, more accurately, his lack of one.Jonathan BurksDeputy Policy DirectorRomney for President
And when Joseph Smith's commandos are caught lyin' bout the numbers, they make sure to throw in the word 'independent' to make their studies claim seem more realistic. Barro responds and completely eviscerates them:
The Romney campaign sent over a list of the studies, but they are perhaps more accurately described as "analyses," since four of them are blog posts or op-eds. I'm not hating -- I blog for a living -- but I don't generally describe my posts as "studies."
Wait, you mean Romney did use a blog post from the op-ed page of the WSJ and claimed it was a study proving the validity of his tax plan? Heavens to Betsy. You can read the whole post here, because he takes apart all the studies err, I mean, bogus information that is being supplied for Team RMoney/Granny Killer.
Matthew O'Brien also has an excellent post up destroying the Granny Killer's claims. The 6 Studies Paul Ryan Cited Prove Mitt Romney's Tax Plan Is Impossible:
Paul Ryan finally had enough time to go through the math of the Romney tax plan during the vice-presidential debate. He didn't use it. Ryan filibustered instead. About the most specific he got was citing "six studies" he said vindicate the plan's mathematical plausibility.
Except they don't...read on
Basically, the propaganda being used to defend Romney only proves that his numbers don't work. It all raises a last question: Where is his own study? You know, the one that they used to verify their plan?
Finally, I would note one item that the Romney campaign does not cite in support of its tax plan: Any analysis actually prepared for the campaign in preparation for announcing the plan in February. You would expect that, in advance of announcing a tax plan, the campaign would commission an analysis to make sure that all of its planks can coexist. Releasing that analysis now would be to the campaign's advantage, helping them put down claims like mine that their math doesn't add up.
Why don't they release that analysis? My guess is because the analysis doesn't exist, and the 20 percent rate cut figure was plucked out of thin air for political reasons without regard to whether it was feasible.
Please, where is Romney's analysis? President Obama and Democrats have argued that Romney will have to raise taxes on the middle class to cut into the deficit and lower taxes for the rich, they are right. In the next debate it would be wise for Obama to ask Romney to explain away his lyin' 'independent studies' claims. There was a time when smirks and gestures weren't the most important part of debate, so let's get back to the facts, please.
