Okay, so beating 60% is too hard. Let's move the limbo bar up a notch. CRFB also calculates its own "realistic baseline." This sounds complicated, but it's the deficit reducer's equivalent of Beginner's Level. This baseline assumes that the Bush tax cuts are extended, some scheduled spending cuts are ignored, and Congress upholds its proud tradition of pushing off hard decisions while it pushes up our debt burden. Sounds reasonable and easy to beat with a few smart cuts and tax changes. But even playing the game on Beginner, every GOP candidate that has ever led a national poll loses the game. Only Ron Paul wins, with a whopping $7.5 trillion in spending cuts.



According to White House projections, the president's budget (red in the graph below) wins the deficit reduction game (on Beginner's Level, at least). The reason is all in the taxes. Each of the GOP candidates cut taxes dramatically and can't find adequate savings, while the president proposes $1.5 trillion in tax increases concentrated on the richest 2%.



Let me anticipate some of your objections. First, the White House relies on optimistic growth numbers that might not play out. Slower growth would lead to higher deficits, because tax revenue wouldn't keep up with mandatory spending. Second, this is all guess work, and there's more than one way to guess. Conservative economists who support tax cuts might want to sell you on "dynamic scoring," which presumes that tax cuts lead to growth, which makes us richer, which increases tax revenue. This is the "tax cuts pay for themselves" argument, and it might be true in the future, but it has a spotty record in the past. Effective and marginal tax rates have fallen for the last 30 years, and growth since 2000 hasn't been so hot.

These plans don't accidentally raise the deficit. They just don't care about the deficit. Deficit reduction isn't hard to do, arithmetically. You raise taxes over time. You control discretionary spending. You clear the way for health care cost innovation while introducing policies that will limit health care in the future. It's not rocket science, it's math. The hard stuff is getting Congress to agree to your math. But how is that supposed to happen if pols refuse to do even the basic addition and subtraction when it's just them and a blank sheet of paper? What does it say about a party that believes "deficit reduction" is a worthy phrase, but not a worthy goal? And what does it say about our political system, and the GOP candidates in particular, that we're normalized to the idea that politicians offer debt-reduction plans that can't even live up to their name?



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