Where can I find the actual tax "math" for Paul Ryan's budget?

In all honesty, I’m not sure you can.

You can get bits and pieces from the work he did on his proposal from a year ago, and some more from the one late last year where he suggested killing Social secutiy and Medicare.

But I’m not sure that it exists as a cogent – find-it-in-one-place document.

It doesn’t exist in a single document. Neither does Romney’s. They both have said it needs working out. Romney wants to cut rates by 20%, but increase the adjusted gross income that rate is applied to. He’d do that by eliminating deductions.

Here’s a potentially useful link:

http://taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/romney-plan.cfm

They have not laid out specifics. I think they are trying to avoid laying out specifics until they are working with Congress.
Bush laid out specifics and was cut down by the Democrats. Obama laid out specifics and was cut up by the Republicans.

If they go in saying, this is the end goal we want, make a list of the things we can do to get there.

Hopefully the Dems and the Reps will both come in with lists, you can compare the two and accept the stuff that is in both lists, drop the stuff from each side that is a deal killer and negotiate about the stuff that is in between until there is a budget that both sides can live with. It won’t be a perfect solution, but it would be a step in the right direction.

@WestRiverrat, it’s not a matter of specifics. It’s a matter of math.

They are proposing 20% rate reductions across the board. That’s $5 trillion over ten years.

They say they will make up these reductions by cutting deductions. But there aren’t enough deductions to make up $5 trillion in the tax code. And many of those deductions affect the middle class much more than the wealthy.

So it’s mathematically impossible. It doesn’t matter how “specific” you get with listing those deductions if there aren’t enough of them to make up the tax rate cuts you’re proposing to begin with.

@Qingu That would only be true if there was no growth in the GNP or in jobs. If you add 12 million new jobs, you add 12 million new taxpayers. You shrink the number of people needing public assistance which will lower the cost of government.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2012/10/10/hey-romney-heres-a-comeback-to-obamas-5-trillion-tax-cut-canard/

“As I pointed out two years ago in my RealClearMarkets column “The Truth About The Bush Tax Cuts“, Bill Clinton collected a total of $5.66 trillion in personal income tax revenue during his eight years as president. George W. Bush cut tax rates and went on to collect $7.37 trillion in personal income tax revenue during his eight years as president. This makes Dubya, the so-called tax cutter, the biggest tax collector in American history.”

@WestRiverrat, right, the fabled Laffer Curve. If we cut taxes for rich people, that wealth will trickle down and employ more people, who will end up paying more taxes… so those rich tax cuts will pay for themselves!

And by the same logic, Obama’s stimulus didn’t increase the deficit at all. It pays for itself! Because the stimulus act saved 1 million jobs. That’s 1 million more tax payers! So the stimulus must be close to revenue neutral over 10 or 20 or however many years, right?

Right? Oh, I forgot. We only apply bullshit logic like that to GOP plans.

Anyway, let’s do the math! You say Romney’s tax plan will magically create 12 million jobs. I guess these are 12 million jobs that would not have existed without Romney’s plan, right? No? Oh, you can’t prove that at all and it’s a completely bullshit assumption? Well nevermind, let’s just assume you’re right. 12 million more jobs, to pay for 5 trillion in cuts over 10 years. So, if I’m doing the math right, each of these 12 million workers is going to have to pay an average of $41,666 in taxes per year to make up the deficit caused by the cuts. Wow, those are some rich workers Romney’s tax plan is creating! Especially considering that he’s cutting their rates to begin with, and won’t specify a single deduction he wants to cut to make additional slack.

Or am I missing something in your argument here?

Ryan’s current plan in vaporware and Romney,s “tax cut” is really not a tax cut if he does what he claims. He says he is going to cut rates 20% for all levels, but he claims he will pay for it by eliminating loopholes. Do that, and it is no tax cut. Plus, every Republican tax cut since they started exploding the debt under Ronald Reagan (he tripped the debt) was going to be paid for completely by eliminating loopholes, fraud and waste.

What was it George W. Bush said about getting fooled again? Bush was right about that, but not about being able to massively slash taxes and pay for it as above. He actually paid for it by doubling the national debt he inherited. Interestingly, even though he voted for the cuts, at the time Paul Ryan criticized the Bush tax cuts for the rich for being too small, because he thought the surpluses the tax cuts would generate would be big enough to offset even bigger cuts (tax cuts don’t actually generate surpluses except in fantasy land).