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The Republican presidential candidates were full of tax talk at this week’s debate. But none has a tax plan coherent enough to be the basis of a substantive discussion, let alone one that could meet the nation’s challenges.
Take, for example, the issue of how much revenue any plan would raise or lose. All of the Republican plans focus on tax cuts, so losses are all but inevitable. Quick-and-dirty calculations of proposals from Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz show red ink running into the trillions of dollars.
Yet the candidates assert, against historical evidence, that revenue losses from tax cuts will be offset by economic growth. Ted Cruz invoked the Reagan-era tax cuts as a model for success for his 10 percent flat-tax proposal. In fact, President Reagan raised taxes to close the budget deficit that opened up after he cut them in 1981. Ben Carson offered his muddled proposal for a tax equal to 15 percent of gross domestic product, saying it would be appealing to everyone once he “put all the facts down.”
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