Moody’s Chief Economist: Romney’s Math Doesn’t Work

Mark Zandi of Moody’s, a former John McCain adviser, says Romney’s idea of cutting taxes 20% across the board and making up the difference by closing tax loopholes doesn’t add up, citing numbers from the Tax Policy Center.

“Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.