"Side-stepping" the question of the balanced budget amendment? LOL. You sure want to change the subject. That's an interesting one, the balanced budget amendment. Maybe I'll join that discussion some time. The Face on Mars offers some scope for lively conversation, too. BTW, I would guess (have to guess, you offer no clue) you make an association between the Missing Tenth Year and the balanced budget amendment because deep down in your innermost heart you think whatever is done to facilitate the implementation of your preferred program is justified. Am I close?
In the meantime, Michael, I'm assuming by your going into denial and ad hominem modes (shooting the messenger, so to speak), instead of defending the action as described, that you feel very uncomfortable indeed, not to mention embarrassed, about the Budget having conveeeeeniently dropped Year Ten out of the calcs.
(Klugman didn't make any "calculations," btw. (Budget did, with an odd omission. Klugman didn't.) He merely reported what the budget assumes about Year Ten as regards the tax cut. It assumes it expires. Though it's not supposed to be temporary, is it? Where's the calculation you found? In one of those links? Oh, maybe the "hundreds of billions of dollars" he mentions is what you consider a "calculation"? It's quite a broad estimate, isn't it? Hardly a "calculation." Well, you go ahead and substitute your estimate, based, perhaps, on the number of hundreds of billions of dollars of lost revenue the budget estimates for Year One through Year Nine? I'd go for Year Nine, actually. It's so close and all to the Missing Year Ten.)
But maybe you did see some actual "calculations" in Klugman's column? Would you paste them here, please? Thanks.
P.S. Will you defend it when you have to stop denying it? Just wondrin'.
You can check it out below if you really think the guy published a bald faced lie, one that would be read by many economists, about what is in (Years 1 - 9) -- and not in (Year 10) -- a printed document. That would be most self destructive of him! Or you can do the easier thing and check the NYT Letters to the Editor and Op Ed pages to see whether any economists at all say, "Hey, Klugman, you missed page 357! Year Ten is right there, you silly!" Or perhaps, "Hey, Klugman! Didn't you read the preface where it says the tax bill is a temporary measure to be cancelled at the end of nine years?!"
w3.access.gpo.gov |
