Today, Treasury Sec. Mnuchin released a one-page report claiming that the GOP tax scam "will pay for itself with growth."
This was in response to requests from Senate Democrats, which had led the Treasury Dept’s Inspector General start an investigation around Nov 30 into whether Mnuchin was refusing to release a Treasury Department's analysis of the Senate tax plan because the agency's report contradicted claims made by both the secretary and Republicans in Congress.
Essentially, the new report assumes a magical GDP growth value, which results in increased revenues over 10 years, wiping out the projected deficit. Magic!
Here is Sen. Elizabeth Warren explaining, in plain words, the flim-flam, hocus-pocus and jiggery-pokery in the so-called-analysis -
Here is the rest of Sen. Warren’s twitter chain -
In this bogus report, @USTreasury was supposed to use its economic models to project how the GOP tax plan would affect economic growth.
It didn't do that. It just made up the numbers.
The @USTreasury report says that IF economic growth is 2.9% instead of 2.2% over the next ten years, then the national debt will go down despite the GOP plan’s massive tax giveaway to big corporations. Oh really?
But how does the report show that economic growth WILL be 2.9% instead of 2.2% thanks to the GOP tax plan? It doesn’t! Instead, @USTreasury "expects approximately half" of this additional growth to come from corporate tax changes.
A bit of important background on this claim. @USTreasury includes the Office of Tax Policy (OTP). The OTP is staffed by non-political tax experts and economists, who are responsible for projecting the economic impact of changes to the tax code.
While @USTreasury’s OTP made other projections in this report, it didn’t make the key projection that growth would go up about .35% annually thanks to the corporate tax changes in the GOP tax bill.
In other words: @USTreasury’s OTP couldn’t support Mnuchin’s claims about economic growth, so he just said it again without evidence.
Mnuchin’s projection is completely out of line with other projections. It's way higher than credible estimates, and even higher than right-wing projections that ignore the effect of the national debt on growth.
But it’s worse: even Mnuchin’s made-up numbers on the corporate tax changes only get Republicans halfway to the economic growth numbers they’re claiming.
Where does the other half of the growth come from according to @USTreasury? Partly from proposals that haven’t even been introduced in Congress and may never happen.
To recap: After claiming repeatedly he had projections showing the #GOPTaxScam paid for itself, Mnuchin released a report showing that there were no such projections, and that even his own wildly optimistic made-up projections weren’t enough for the plan to pay for itself.
The American people deserve to know how this #GOPTaxScam will impact the economy and how it will affect middle-class families. @USTreasury promised an economic analysis – but this isn’t it. I look forward to the IG’s investigation providing real answers for American families.
Reactions
Here are some reactions from economists and tax experts from around the country -
Sen. Chuck Schumer -
It's clear the White House and Republicans are grasping at straws to prove the unprovable and garner votes for a bill that nearly every single independent analysis has concluded will blow up the deficit and generate almost no additional economic activity to make up for it.
Some Actual Analysis
Meanwhile, there was an analysis published by the JCT — the Joint Committee on Taxation - a committee of the United States Congress, which totally contradicts Mnuchin’s gimmickery -
Economists at Wharton (no bastion of liberal thought) published an even higher deficit number -
Other News
In other news, European finance ministers sent a notification that the tax plan could violate international tax laws -
Resist
There is no end to the shameless lies and deceptions this administration and the GOP will put out, to ram through their tax-cut-for-the-rich bill.
Let’s keep those phones ringing and find events to participate in -