At last night's debate, Martha Raddatz asked Paul Ryan to specifically lay out how he and Mitt Romney intend to lower all Americans' tax rates by 20 percent. This tax cut has been a major part of the Romney/Ryan campaign, but both have been incredibly vague about how they can cut the nation's tax revenue without increasing its deficit. Paul Ryan famously told Fox News' Chris Wallace he "[didn't] have the [time]" because it "would take [him] too long to go through all of the math."
Well, last night he did go through the math. It took about eighteen seconds.
The math? New York Times' economics reporter Catherine Rampell wrote a very good rundown explaining why this tax cut is impossible. The gist of it being that Romney/Ryan has promised not to get rid of any existing middle class tax credits; that $1.1 trillion figure Ryan mentions includes said middle class tax credits. Romney/Ryan's tax plan will lower the nation's tax revenue by $251 billion and the loopholes closed will raise $165 billion. That, as any high schooler with a TI-83 will tell you, leaves us in the red.
All along, Romney and Ryan have been telling us rubes we wouldn't be able to comprehend their plan, but, according to Paul Ryan's explanation, it's a very simple, and impossible concept.