In their report they claim: "The Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis (CDA) conducted a dynamic simulation of the proposals in the President's tax relief plan. The final results show that the Bush plan would significantly increase economic growth and family income while substantially reducing federal debt."

Instead, the federal debt shot up nearly $5 trillion under this plan -- and half of that debt came from the tax cuts. As far as increasing economic growth and family income, the middle class saw a Lost Decade where their wages failed to rise for the first time in the four decades that the Census Bureau has been keeping track .

The Heritage Foundation's 2001 report kept up a drumbeat of upbeat expectations and projections. If Bush tax cut legislation were to pass, it would, the Foundation said:

1) Effectively pay off the federal debt;

2) Reduce the federal surplus by $1.4 trillion;

3) Substantially increase family income;

4) Save the entire Social Security surplus;

5) Increase personal savings;

6) Create more job opportunities.

The authors continued, confidently predicting that "over 1.6 million more Americans would be working at the end of FY 2011" thanks to the Bush tax cuts. Some other promises: "the unemployment rate would average just 4.7 percent instead of 4.9 percent from FY 2001 to FY 2011" and the cuts would create growth so robust that the "Social Security surplus would increase by $53 billion, making more resources available over the next 11 years to reform the program."

We all know how that worked out.

In an inspired bit of timing in June of 2008, basically days before the economy cratered and President Bush had to "abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," the Heritage Foundation announced the tax cuts were a success.

In a report, J.D. Foster wrote: "Tax relief worked.... It produced a more growth-oriented tax policy for the long term, helping the economy to weather current storms arising in the housing and capital markets."

If this were Vegas, where the house thrives on bad bets, the Heritage Foundation would not only get their room comped, and some free tickets to the Blue Man Group -- the entire Strip would be begging to have them visit their casinos.



I asked Beach, whose name is on the report for the Bush Tax Cut report and Ryan's plan, about the rosy forecasts that turned out to be incorrect. He said warmly, "I do like to be right more than wrong." He called it a standard economic theory to cuts taxes for the wealthy to create a greater supply of labor and capital (though, of course, liberal economists disagree with this supply-side economic thinking, as does the reality of the last 30 years).

"Models are meant to give advice. Lawyers give advice but they don't know what will happen in the future," stated Beach. He noted the dot com bubble that was about to burst when his report was published, and said that that, coupled with 9/11 and then what Beach called "politically motivated spending increases by the Bush Administration," threw things off. He meant Medicare Part D and the Iraq War.