by Cactus Jack » Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:12 am
“Not only will this tax plan pay for itself but it will pay down debt,” That's what Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin famously boasted in September - well now we have the data, collected and collated by Steve Mnuchin's own department, and we can see whether he was right or wrong
Let's start with the good news. The economy definitely did grow, and even if you wanted to argue that it merely continued to grow advocates for the tax cut could argue, based on the figures, that the cuts boosted growth.
That's the good news. The bad news is the boost to the economy didn't come near to paying for the tax cuts. In fact by the most moderate of estimates they fell by around $83 billion.
For information: The way most economists “score” a tax proposal is to ask how it would change revenue levels compared to what you would expect the government to collect if the tax cut had not passed — what economists call a “baseline.” What the Treasury Department will have done is taken its projections for economic growth and revenue, and inevitably they will have taken the most pessimistic projections to give the new scenario the best chance to look good, and then compare the situation with what has actually happened.
What Steve Mnuchin's department has done is provide evidence that the average US citizen would have been better off if the tax cuts had never happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/busi ... venue.html
“Not only will this tax plan pay for itself but it will pay down debt,” That's what Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin famously boasted in September - well now we have the data, collected and collated by Steve Mnuchin's own department, and we can see whether he was right or wrong
[attachment=0]Tax Cuts.png[/attachment]
Let's start with the good news. The economy definitely did grow, and even if you wanted to argue that it merely continued to grow advocates for the tax cut could argue, based on the figures, that the cuts boosted growth.
That's the good news. The bad news is the boost to the economy didn't come near to paying for the tax cuts. In fact by the most moderate of estimates they fell by around $83 billion.
For information: The way most economists “score” a tax proposal is to ask how it would change revenue levels compared to what you would expect the government to collect if the tax cut had not passed — what economists call a “baseline.” What the Treasury Department will have done is taken its projections for economic growth and revenue, and inevitably they will have taken the most pessimistic projections to give the new scenario the best chance to look good, and then compare the situation with what has actually happened.
What Steve Mnuchin's department has done is provide evidence that the average US citizen would have been better off if the tax cuts had never happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/business/trump-tax-cuts-revenue.html