An Analysis of Republican Ryan's "Budget"

Here is an analysis by "Invictus" at Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture blog of Rep. Ryan's proposed "budget" for the US. What I find most amusing is the "update" that Invictus has to put on his analysis because the Republicans are busy changing the goalposts and doing a 1984-style rewrite of history as problems pop up in this "budget"...

UPDATE: Apparently, in one document that can be found here, Heritage has simply disappeared the line item in which the unemployment rate falls to 2.8 percent by 2021. The document states: ”Updated as of April 6, 2011 at 11:04 a.m. EST,” which update was presumably the removal of the unemployment rate projections. At this moment (13:30 Eastern), it still appears — for now – in this document (which I have saved in multiple spots). It is, frankly, remarkable to me that they would take such an action. Apparently when one’s analysis does not stand up to even the most cursory examination, the solution is simple: Delete the offending data.

Invictus here, folks. Filling in a bit for our traveling host with a side-by-side glimpse of our competing budget plans.

Paul Krugman has very recently written here and here about some improbable aspects of the Ryan budget proposal. In that vein, I thought it might be instructive to take a look at some of the similarities and differences of forecasts in Obama’s projections versus those being offered by Ryan.

What I have done in each case is as follows: I downloaded the appropriate series from the St. Louis Fed (or in one case BEA.gov), always on an annual basis. In almost all cases I made what I believe is a reasonable assumption for 2011 to bridge me from known 2010 (and prior) historical data to 2012 and beyond forecasts. Those assumptions are noted. I then simply took forecast numbers from the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the two plans (the forecasts are in Appendix 3).

Go read the original article to see the many graphs where Invictus shows quantitatively the (usually) meagre differences between Ryan's projection and those of Obama's budget.

The one graph where there is a big difference between Obama and Ryan -- unemployment -- is pure speculation and wild-assed guessing by Ryan. I do not believe there is any credible method to extrapolate employment changes meaningfully from the Ryan budget. But that is purely my humble opinion. What I do know is that claims by Republicans in the past have all turned out to be outrageous lies. Remember how Bush promised that his tax cuts would "unleash entrepreneurial power" and grow the economy? Instead he got a very weak recovery from the 2001 recession. The Reagan tax cuts promised to deliver a booming economy. They didn't. The real boom in the economy came during the Clinton years where he took the harsh measures to balance the budget and impose tax increases on the rich. The Republicans have no credibility in their "projections".