Ryan Says They've Explained Tax Plan Math

     If that's true I must have blinked as I never saw it. Steve Colbert made a joke yesterday about what a math expert Ryan is where no one can understand the plan.

     "Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan asserted on multiple occasions Tuesday morning that the numbers behind the Romney campaign's tax plan add up."

     "They don't, though allied conservative groups are now rushing to help fill in the details.
The Wisconsin Republican was asked during a sit down with Bloomberg News why he was offering specifics when it came to the goodies of the tax plan -- a 20 percent across-the-board deduction of rates, a ten percent reduction of the corporate tax rates, a repeal of the estate tax -- while detailing none of the bitter pills -- the deductions and exemptions that must be eliminated to make the proposal deficit neutral."

    "You don’t say to Congress, to Democrats, that you want to work with, 'Take it or leave it, it's everything, it's all my way or the highway," Ryan responded.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/paul-ryan-mitt-romney-tax-plan_n_1932167.html

    The Romney team itself seems to have no idea how they will make an alleged cross the boards tax cut revenue neutral without raising taxes on the middle class.

    "Even Romney's campaign seems to be confused about how the math will work. Last week, Kevin Hassett, a Romney economic adviser, suggested that the candidate would scale back the 20 percent tax cut if he couldn't find the deductions and exemptions to help pay for it. Shortly after, Romney told a largely middle-class crowd in Ohio that they shouldn't be expecting too much tax relief because he would be going after their exemptions and deductions."

   This is yet another paradoxical point about Romney's plan: if it's not a tax cut then why do it?

    However, now some Right wing think tanks are trying to give Romney cover. The AEI claims it's possible to cut rates and be revenune neutral without raising the middle class' taxes:

    "And yet, conservative think tanks are doing their best to help provide the candidate some cover. On Tuesday, the American Enterprise Institute produced another analysis arguing that Romney could have his 20 percent cut without raising taxes on the middle class. Past studies that the Romney campaign has cited as supportive have said that exemptions and deductions on income above $100,000 would have to be eliminated in order to make the math work."

    "AEI insists that if you set Romney's plans for health care reform aside, the numbers are more favorable to him. AEI also argues that if "the economy were to grow just 0.1 percentage point faster per year as a result of the [Romney tax] reform" then Romney's tax plan could be revenue neutral without additional taxes on the middle class."

    "Neutral budget analysts would likely quibble with these assumptions. But they do represent a more detailed framework than what the Romney campaign has offered to date."

     So if a 0.1 percent jump in GDP will make it revenue netural?! Why not then extend the payroll tax cut?