I’m not giving any gold stars to the Dems, but the GOP plan (Ryan plan embraced by Romney) is insane from a fiscal responsibility standpoint. Even though I said “fair share” should not be the central argument, it is useful to note what the Ryan plan would do in that regard.

The concept is to broaden the tax base by getting rid of thus far unidentified tax expenditures (i.e., itemized deductions) and lower marginal rates by nearly 30% (from 35% to 25% at the top end). Low income people probably come out about even in that deal in terms of taxes but will lose out from cuts to services and entitlements. Upper middle income people lose out on the tax side, since they are the ones who tend to benefit most from things like the mortgage interest deduction. They will also be the most affected by “means testing” Medicare. Mega-income people make out the best. A CEO with $10 million of taxable salary income gets a million dollar tax cut, which is far greater than the effect of losing a $60k mortgage interest deduction on a maximum $1.1 million mortgage. They also get to keep the big breaks on investment income, including the absurd “carried interest” break. Meanwhile, we pile on an additional $4.6 Trillion in debt attributable to the proposed tax cuts.

As for the “Buffet rule,” that’s a bit gimmicky for my taste. However, Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, said Friday that it should be called the “Reagan Rule.” Under Reagan, when his tax cuts were in full effect, the top maximum tax rate was 28% on everything, including investment income. Ryan wants to keep the 15% rate on investment income and reduce the top rate on ordinary income to 25%, which is 11% lower than under Reagan.

Bush’s tax cuts (2001 and 2003) were first justified on the notion that the Clinton surpluses were “our money” and should be returned to us, even though we ended up paying for the cuts with debt. Later, they were justified as a way to promote economic growth, even though they didn’t do that. The only economic and job growth we got was a few years of phony growth induced by the real estate “wealth effect” fever.

That’s how they get their jollies I guess.