Holy $#!& Quote of the Day: Mnuchin’s Wild Tax Cut Claim
Taxes

Holy $#!& Quote of the Day: Mnuchin’s Wild Tax Cut Claim

JOSHUA ROBERTS

"I’ll stay on the record that I think tax cuts will pay for themselves."

– Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at the World Economic Forum at Davos, as reported by Heather Long of The Washington Post. Mnuchin reportedly said that deficit growth of nearly 50% over the last two years has been “right in line” with projections and that revenues are likely to grow.

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell responded with a useful reminder: “Literally no independent forecaster agrees with this.” And Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, speculated about Mnuchin’s motivation for making such an extraordinary claim: “He can say this, presumably knowing that it's first order garbage, because there will be no adverse consequences for him when it is proved not to be true. Whereas if he says the opposite, he's out of a job.”

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