Tax cuts, and debt, and arithmetic: Oh my! | Economic Policy Institute
"At bare minimum, Romney is proposing to exacerbate the fiscal outlook by $7.1 trillion before he starts axing tax expenditures and/or domestic spending. The one scenario in which the Romney tax and budget plan would lower public debt relative to current policy would necessitate $4.0 trillion in non-interest spending cuts over the decade, again relative to current policy. As Clinton duly noted, Romney’s concerns about fiscal profligacy are also belied by a defense build-up of over $2 trillion, which would effectively bump the requisite primary spending cut to $6.2 trillion (-15.3 percent).3 And under none of these scenarios would Romney achieve a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than the president’s 2013 budget request, which would reduce debt by $3.0 trillion relative to current policy, lowering public debt to 73.4 percent of GDP by fiscal 2022.4 Indeed, it is much easier to reduce debt if youincrease taxes rather than slash them by trillions of dollars; it’s a matter of basic arithmetic."
