It's a decent plan; probably not realistic to actually get passed but a strong starting point for negotiations.

The question, though, is where this 5 trillion in spending cuts is going to come from, and how does cutting 5 trillion in projected spending from baseline (including the military sequester) speed us up enough to get a balanced budget in 4 years, especially where tax revenues would likely go down somewhat given the depth of cuts - guys paying 20 or 25% marginal (and assuming deductions are still in place) and now only paying 10%. The question is where on the Laffer Curve we're on for any particular tax.

I also don't notice much about his manufacturing tax exemption - but I like that idea (if done properly, not withstanding economic purist objections which I do understand).

He lowered himself, though, with the over shots at Romney in the WSJ. You can say the same things in an understated way that will get the point across, and yet not make you look "angry."

Madisonian,

Before you falsely acuse me of static scoring, would you please read my post.

The sentence where it states "it depends on where on the Laffer curve we are with the specific rates" explicitely contemplates that some cuts will in fact result in more tax revenue, while others will approach static levels (and in between).

Yeesh!

I like the sound of that although the devil is in the details. For example, if his tax reform isn't revenue neutral he'll need to cut more than $5 trillion in spending. We've yet to see a Congress controlled by either party actually cut anything. At best they slow the rate of growth, so $5T in five years is a big lift. And there's still the question of whether he or Romney is more electable. If Obama wins it won't matter how good the loser's plan was.

That would be your Herbert Hoover-style "conservative" anger you express at the WSJ, right, Wanda?

Allow me to assist in the alleviation of it. It's not the WSJ's job to fact-check or number-crunch the OPINION pieces that politicians submit. That type of work will take place in other articles authored by WSJ personnel.

They'd either run it, or not. And they tend to give pols of all stripes the forum, so they're inclined to run it, and let Santorum defend it.

That's how come your leftist fellow travelers in the administration were able to claim in those same WSJ op-ed pages that ObamaCare would REDUCE the budget deficit.

Remember that whopper, Wanda? It was called out in an editorial on the opposite page, not edited out.

Though it's doubtful, you just might be a Hoover-era conservative (sans the distaste for defeating Hitler, right?). Should that dubious claim have been edited out of your comments, or should you be allowed to make it and have your credibility judged accordingly?

You said just the other day that you are what "American conservatives used to be".

I conceded that might be true, if you were referring to Herbert Hoover and those in his administration, who, with their 70% income tax rates they enacted ,and all their Smoot-Hawley zeal for raising barriers to the flow of capital and goods, were not really all that conservative, you know?

So, following up on your comment that you are a left-behind conservative from yesteryear, perhaps you are of the stripe that was so isolationist, along with the progressives, as to oppose going to war with Hitler.

You cannot claim to be a Hoover-ite and pick and choose your points of convergence.

The claim itself was laughable. So what you find so bothersome is that I have a clever way to laugh at you.

Fish, the conservative from a by-gone era!

Riiiiiight. But if so, it must be from the Hoover era.

Here is what I think of Santorum's plan: it's better than Romney's; it's good to encourage making things again, because we won't survive as a nation if we don't make anything; it's good to lower the corporate tax rate, because that is what is sending jobs making things overseas; and he's on record to desire reforming our major entitlements.

That last point will only put pressure on him to be more specific, and I'm patient.

Lastly, I really don't care what the specifics of these plans are, because NONE of them EVER get enacted, as-is. That is reality. And the people who sit here and criticize because "that'll never happen!" need to join Mr. Jesse Jackson in RealityLand.

"vaguely more supply-side."

Well, except that everyone notices that, Brennan, not just you.

So, it's not Brennan's keen reading and analytical ability that compels the conclusion that Santorum's plan is more supply-side. It's the mere fact that Santorum's plan IS more supply-side that makes it readily obvious to those who closely follow both plans.

Seems Brennan is "vaguely" supporting Mitt Romney. Too bad for both him and Romney he's ashamed to be up-front about that, and prefers instead to hide his candidate advocacy innocuously behind the thin veil of supposedly objective analysis of "plans".

Red meat served with a 5 year plan. If that doesn't sound promising comrades, I don't know what does!

RE: "not exactly a profile in courage"

Neither is taking credit for a book one did not write...but I digress.

RE: "tripling the deduction for children"

Credits are so much more evil than deductions - those are what has to go, first. People paying less than nothing in taxes is a giant crock.

>"All Obama administration regulations that have an economic burden over $100 million will be repealed."

Translation: "Just make sure that regulations will only place $99,999,999 of burden, because that's OK to President Big (But Not Too Big) Government. And make sure the eradication of the scourge of immorality becomes the central pillar of all decisions."

Right. I wasn't planning on bothering to vote in tomorrow's Michigan primary because I think all the options are terrible and will take whomever is the Not Obama in November, but now I must go and vote for Romney in order to crush Santorum's highly-destructive presence in the campaign. He is simply too politically inept and committed to waging Holy War to be allowed to drag down the election and ensure Obama finishes killing the country.

While K.Lo and Lowry (and fellow moral scolds like Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett) are totally up for a domestic Crusade against Satan's influence, sane people know that now is the worst possible time for the Stupid Party to take up the Cross on the field of political battle. Values ARE important, but if you lose everything to those who are committed to murdering the Republic and replacing it was an irreversible Soviet-styled system, what have you gained? Exactly.