Department of "Duh"

By James Kwak

The Times has a story out today: Surprise, all the Republican candidates' tax plans increase the national deficit! The numbers (reduction in 2015 tax revenues, from the Tax Policy Center):

Romney: $600 billion
Gingrich: $1.3 trillion
(Late lamented) Perry: $1.0 trillion
Santorum: $1.3 trillion

I guess that makes Romney the "fiscally responsible" choice, at least among the Republicans. But President Obama's tax proposals would only reduce 2015 tax revenues by $222 billion. (That's $385 billion in Table S-4 less $163 billion in Table S-3.)

Second surprise: The big winners in all of these tax plans are the rich! (That's not just in dollars, but in percentage increase in after-tax income.)

I don't mean to be hard on the Times reporters. This is exactly the kind of story they should be writing. Someone has to point out that the same people who are complaining about deficits are proposing to vastly increase those deficits. Especially when their fantastic claims are essentially going unchallenged on the campaign trail.