The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania has released the most brutal analysis of the GOP tax bill to date and this is amuses me for a very particular reason.
According to the school's analysis, the GOP tax cut bill as it is written will add up to $1.9 trillion to our deficits over the next 10 years.
More importantly, they say this will happen even if you include phantom economic growth.
By 2027, under our standard economics assumptions, GDP is projected to be between 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent larger, relative to no tax changes. Debt increases between $1.8 trillion and $1.9 trillion, inclusive of economic growth.
By 2040, GDP is projected to be between 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent larger under our baseline assumptions, and debt increases by $2.6 to $3.1 trillion.
Additional sensitivity analysis indicates that even under assumptions favorable to economic growth, by 2027, GDP is projected to be between 1.0 percent and 1.9 percent larger, and debt increases between $1.5 trillion and $1.8 trillion.
Obviously, the disparity between this analysis and the joke released by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin this morning couldn't be wider. Mnuchin's analysis says the GOP tax cut bill will pay itself with even less economic growth than what the Wharton School projects.
If you consider the possibility that the Wharton School's projections for economic growth are too generous, their analysis would clearly be far more bleak.
Now, I said this amuses me for a particular reason and the reason is this: the Wharton School is the school Donald Trump himself allegedly "studied" at.