Ryan's Supply-Side 2012 Budget

By Larry Kudlow
Sunday, March 25, 2012

There are a lot of really good things in Paul Ryan’s new budget, which is a stark contrast to the Obama budget. Ryan cuts spending by over $5 trillion, lowers the deficit by over $3 trillion, and brings the debt-to-GDP ratio down to 62 percent. All of these are ten-year totals.

Ryan also cuts back on small entitlements, block-granting them to the states. Then, of course, there’s the new and improved Medicare-reform plan.

But what I really like about this year’s Ryan budget is his singular emphasis on pro-growth, supply-side tax reform.

Working with Dave Camp, Ryan has laid out a great blueprint for Mitt Romney and the whole Republican party. In particular, while listening to the budget meister at a small luncheon for conservative journalists and think-tankers in Washington on Monday, what I heard again and again was an emphasis on economic growth.

This is not to say Ryan is not worried about spending, deficits, and debt, which of course he is. But his reform message to limit government really spends a lot of time on tax simplification, ending cronyist carve-outs and loopholes, and of course dropping the personal and corporate rates.

Growth solves a lot of problems. All those GDP ratios for spending, deficits, and debt look a lot better when the GDP denominator is rising rapidly. Not through inflation, but through new incentives to promote real growth.

Unfortunately, the first cut of the Ryan budget is based on CBO static estimates of growth and revenues. That is a budget-committee obligation. But I’m told that on Thursday we will get a different set of numbers based on dynamic scoring of lower tax-rate incentives. I’m guessing the growth difference is 3 percent static and 4 percent dynamic. Dropping tax rates as much as Ryan does, which reminds me of Reagan-era tax reform, could probably produce even more growth. Therefore, the budget could be balanced in a much shorter period of time with much lower debt ratios.

Let’s see what the second set of numbers brings.