Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, took a shot at House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan today, implying that the Wisconsin Republican was fudging numbers in his criticism of the "Gang of Six" deficit reduction proposal.
After the bipartisan group of senators released an outline to reduce the country’s deficits this week, Ryan questioned the plan, saying that the gang's formula for saving money and increasing revenues didn't seem to add up.
Crapo disagrees.
“Well, that's just not accurate,” the senator said on Fox and Friends on Thursday morning. “The way this comes about is that depending on the baseline you use and how you start analyzing and what assumptions you make, you can pretty much do whatever you want with numbers.”
Crapo said that the bottom line is that the plan will “reduce taxes dramatically.” The highest rates, he said, would be brought down from 39 percent to between 34 and 29 percent, the middle rate will be 12-18 percent, and the bottom rate will be 8-12 percent.
“That’s a phenomenal tax cut for Americans across the board,” Crapo said.
Since the group has only put out an outline of its plan, it’s impossible to know exactly how it would affect taxes. The plan would supposedly reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over 10 years, but with time running out on the August 2 deadline, it may not factor in as part of the current debate on raising the debt ceiling.
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