From what rgb said I infer he meant that the Romney tax plan could reduce the deficit.  Rgb am I right?   But the tax plan was only about distribution and revenue neutrality. At any rate,  it’s certainly time to put this to bed.  On to the election.
 

I wanted to come to an under­stand­ing of what con­sti­tutes “doable” in terms of Mitt’s plans.…and other plans that Obama has implemented.

My interpretation of “doable” in this case is as follows: “Can all of the claimed outcomes be simultaneously true?”

I did, but in PWS’s previous thread. I wanted to come to an understanding of what constitutes “doable” in terms of Mitt’s plans.…and other plans that Obama has implemented.

OK, I’ll look at your comments on PWS’s previous thread and/or the one to be posted today.

I did, but in PWS’s previous thread. I wanted to come to an understanding of what constitutes “doable” in terms of Mitt’s plans.…and other plans that Obama has implemented.

I’m also wrapping up Saturday’s Election Watch, which has grown to mammoth proportions.

I’ve always thought that they should fol­low this with the line “…good luck on find­ing the data, sucker!”.

Great response.   If Michael lets me,  I’ll have a further post on this tomorrow.  Look forward to your comments. 

Actually,   Curtis DuBay of Heritage does complain that the TPC was not transparent enough in their analysis.  Anyone who reads the original paper can see they’re completely transparent in their assumptions.  And as Feldstein points out,  they take about 100,000 tax returns and recalculate them under the revised rules. Hey, anyone can do it.  The only part that’s not transparent are certain micro-level behavioral effects that they have to make some assumptions anout.

I usually like Brad Delong a lot, but that was an awfully windy response. I think it’s covered better in TPCs response to Feldstein„ which I’ll try to post later.

I took a look for it and found it at this link. It does look very good. I’ll add it to my links on my Romney Tax Plan page.

Wait, are you saying you don’t give much credence to the TPC study? Because their methodology is more complex?

No, I’m definitely not saying that. I was not clear when I said “it’s helpful to look at the data from both perspectives”. What I mean is that there is a very much a place for advanced, complex economic analysis AND for simpler analysis that is more within the realm of non-professional number-crunchers to verify. Advanced, complex economic analysis has a number of advantages. It can serve to advance economic theory and help us to better understand complex economic events. I actually think that the TPC study did a great service in doing a thorough analysis of the Romney tax plan even though Romney refused to give any detail about the painful parts of the plan (though he was very explicit about the “goodies”!). Being a complex study, there were no simple sources that they could provide to number-crunchers. I assume that they have provided details on their model to other experts and economists since I have heard no complaints that they are using some sort of magical black box that disagrees with everyone else’s models. In any event, they have clearly explained their approach and the results so that others can examine their methodology and do additional studies.

However, I think it’s also appropriate to test the results of the TPC study against historical data. Some have said that 2009 was not a typical year and makes the numbers look for favorable for the Romney plan. Hence, it would be reasonable to look at other years as well. This does have an advantage that historical data is generally available and can be verified. The disadvantage is that historical data does not account for changes which may have occurred which may cause the future to be different. In any case, my gripe is with those studies which use public data but cannot seem to take the trouble to provide precise, usable sources. In this age of the internet, there’s no good reason why they can’t provide links to the data if it’s online. I can’t count the number of graphs and tables I’ve seen that just give the source as “CBO data” or, as in the case of the Feldstein study, “2009 IRS data”. I’ve always thought that they should follow this with the line “…good luck on finding the data, sucker!”. Some of this may be habit or laziness. Before the internet, there was little chance that casual newspaper readers would go to the library and look up the numbers in obscure government documents. However, most of this data is on the internet now. Hence, I think that much of this poor sourcing is actually to keep nosy number-crunchers from checking the sources. Even if the numbers are more or less accurate (as were Feldstein’s), examining the source invariably turns up additional data which the author overlooked, be it accidental or on purpose. With so much of the data on the internet, I think that the time has come to force the creators of these studies (those for which public data is available) to provide good sources. The best way to do that is likely to give no credence to those studies that could easily provide those source but do not.

Wait,  are you saying you don’t give much credence to the TPC study?   Because their methodology is more complex?   Or because they use much more detailed information (dozens of thousands of individual tax returns)?  That seems like an odd judgement, that we’d rely less on a detailed study by a very well respected institute than on our own back of the envelope calculations.   In that case,  why not ignore the CBO analyses?

And are you also saying that models should be constructed so that you don’t need expertise to understand them?  Is that true in any other profession?  Again, an odd judgement.

I usually like Brad Delong a lot, but that was an awfully windy response.   I  think it’s covered better in TPCs response to Feldstein„  which I’ll try to post later.