House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released the GOP’s new budget this morning, and in doing so, he touted it as a plan to make America’s level of debt more sustainable. “We’ve shared with Americans a specific plan of action that cuts spending, pays off the debt and gets our economy back on the path to prosperity,” Ryan said.

The problem with Ryan’s rhetoric is that his plan fails to match it. By giving massive tax breaks to corporations and the top one percent and preserving unsustainable levels of defense spending, the House GOP’s plan to reduce the debt would fail to reduce the debt. In fact, because it assumes levels of revenue that are pure fantasy under his tax proposals, the plan would actually increase the debt, according to an analysis by Center for American Progress Tax and Budget Policy Director Michael Linden:

But the House budget’s entire claim to deficit reduction is built on the foundation of those fantasy revenue levels. Without them, the debt goes up, not down. In fact, with all the House budget’s tax cuts properly accounted for, revenue would average just 15.3 percent of GDP from 2013 through 2022, not 18.3 percent. The result: deficits would never drop below 4.4 percent of GDP, and would rise to more than 5 percent of GDP by 2022.

The national debt, measured as a share of GDP, would never decline, surpassing 80 percent by 2014, and 90 percent by 2022. By comparison, President Barack Obama’s budget proposal, released in February, would stabilize the debt by 2015, and bring it down to 76 percent by 2022.

As Linden notes, the GOP’s “debt reduction” isn’t just based on fantasy levels of revenue — it’s based on “massive, unrealistic” spending cuts as well. Medicaid would face $1 trillion cuts in the first decade, while education and workforce training programs would get cut in half and transportation funding would be reduced by nearly 25 percent. The plan, which also ignores previous deals and increases defense spending, would also require deep cuts in other vital domestic programs.

“If you agree it’s morally wrong to ignore the most predictable crisis in U.S. history, this is your budget,” Ryan tweeted yesterday. Apparently, though, it seems Ryan and his Republican colleagues got so wrapped up in creating a budget that benefits the top one percent, they forgot to actually reduce the debt.

The House Republican budget is based on a flawed ideology and the discredited idea of trickle down economics, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Tuesday. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled the GOP’s budget this morning, revealing that, like last year, it targets steep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and includes more than $3 trillion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Ryan claims the budget will be revenue neutral and put a significant dent in the nation’s deficit, but Van Hollen dismissed it as an unserious plan that doesn’t come close to getting Democrats to the table for compromise. Republicans, Van Hollen said, are hamstrung by their loyalty to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge and their belief in the discredited theory of trickle down economics:

VAN HOLLEN: This is a totally ideological budget. You have to remember that 98 percent of Republicans in the House have signed this pledge to Grover Norquist that says they will not support closing one tax loophole, not one penny from closing one tax loophole, for the purpose of deficit reduction. Well if you’re not going to take one penny from getting rid of oil and gas subsidies or closing tax loopholes for deficit reduction, by definition, you’re not going to take a balanced approach, you’re not looking at both sides of the budget equation.

So, I think it is based on ideology, and again, the underlying ideology here is this discredited theory of trickle down economics, the notion that by providing these windfall tax breaks for the wealthiest in this country, somehow that will just trickle down and lift the middle class. The reality is the only people it’s lifting up is the yachts, not the regular boats that are out there.

Ryan and his colleagues continue to cling to the belief that providing enormous tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations will spur economic growth, and this plan is no different. That belief, however, ignores reality. Providing a huge tax break to the wealthy in the form of the Bush tax cuts did nothing to spur economic growth or job creation, and as Center for American Progress economist Adam Hersh noted today, the GOP’s massive tax cuts for businesses under both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush failed to boost business investment.

And yet, the GOP is back with another budget that cuts vital safety net programs for the middle class and the poor to pay for massive tax cuts for the rich, and yet again, the party claims such policies will boost job growth and speed the economic recovery. The reality, however, is that the Republican Party’s trickle-down policies don’t work and never have.

Our guest blogger is Adam Hersh, an economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, would like you to know two things about the budget plan he released today: it cuts taxes for corporations and it cuts income taxes, especially at the top end. Ryan would like you to believe this tax cutting policy is a prescription for economic growth. It’s not.

Investment — by private businesses and in public goods — is the engine of economic growth. Investment creates jobs and boosts the economy today while raising productivity growth and living standards for the long-run competitiveness of our economy. Ryan’s budget already robs $871 billion from economic opportunity-creating public investments in education, transportation and infrastructure, and science and technology. Will private investment encouraged by Ryan’s tax cuts for the wealthy and big business offset lost public investments?

No, if history has anything to tell us. The graph below shows the rate of net nonresidential investment by nonfinancial corporations averaged across each of the post-World War II business cycle expansions. Net investment measures the amount that businesses are adding to their stock of factories, buildings, equipment and computers, and computer software after subtracting out the value of past investments that get used up or worn out through normal business operation. And the graph measures this net investment for the good economic times, when our economy is growing.

The two periods of most ambitious tax cutting like what Rep. Ryan proposed today came during the 1980s under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush and the 2000s under President George W. Bush. And in both of these periods, corporations actually disinvested in the United States by an average of 0.8 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP. Despite growing economies, businesses under Reagan-George Bush and George W. Bush actually invested so little that they did not even keep up as equipment and factories wore out. In fact, the Reagan and George W. Bush years registered the worst performance for business investment in the entire postwar history of the U.S. economy! Both periods ended with exploding federal budget deficits. In contrast, the more progressive tax policies to strengthen the middle class implemented under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama helped reinvigorate business investment to 2.2 and 1.4 percent of GDP.

Rep. Ryan would like to frame the debate swirling around his conservative budget proposal as a matter of choice. The choice for Americans is clear: more economic growth and opportunity from private and public investment, or the conservative Ryan way.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reacted to conservatives across the country who have pushed for a return to the gold standard today, saying such a move “would not be feasible for practical and policy reasons.” Bernanke’s answer was in response to a question during his lecture about the history of the Federal Reserve today at George Washington University.

Returning to the gold standard wouldn’t be practical because there isn’t enough gold, Bernanke said. And even if it was practical, he added, it would be disastrous from a policy standpoint, preventing the Fed from responding to drastic rises in unemployment or rapid inflation or deflation during economic downturns. Committing to the gold standard, Bernanke said, “would mean we are swearing that no matter how bad unemployment gets, we aren’t going to do anything about it”:

STUDENT: Why is there an argument — some argument — for returning to the gold standard, and is it even possible?

BERNANKE: [...] I think, though, that the gold standard would not be feasible for both practical reasons and policy reasons. On the practical side there’s just not enough gold to meet the needs of a worldwide gold standard. But more fundamentally than that, the world has changed. [...] In a modern world, the commitment to the gold standard would mean that we are swearing that under no circumstances, no matter how bad unemployment gets, are we going to do anything about it using monetary policy.

Watch it:

Conservatives around the country have pushed for a return to the gold standard, particularly since Bernanke’s Fed took sweeping monetary policy actions to combat the Great Recession. In state houses across the country, Republicans have pushed bills that would declare the dollar unconstitutional or force taxpayers to pay the government in only gold or silver. Goldbug fever also swept the Republican presidential primary, as candidates (besides long-time gold standard advocate Ron Paul) spoke at pro-gold standard events and stumped for it on the trail.

But as Bernanke noted, returning to the gold standard would have perilous consequences for the American economy. The American economy, he noted, was more prone to recessions before the gold standard was dropped, and, as with the Great Depression, the gold standard tends to make such downturns even more painful. “If you look at actual history, you’ll see that the gold standard didn’t work that well,” Bernanke said. “Indeed…there’s a good bit of evidence that the gold standard was one of the main reasons that the Depression was so deep and long.”

Officials in Hamilton County, Ohio are preparing to sell off a local hospital at half its 2006 value, then raid the county’s rainy day fund, all in order to help pay for Cincinnati’s boondoggle stadium deal.

The stadium deal, struck in 1996, built separate new facilities for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals and the MLB’s Cincinnati Reds, but ended up costing local taxpayers far more than initially anticipated. The final bill to the county came in at $540 million, more than double its initial budget. The Wall Street Journal called the project “one of the worst professional sports deals ever struck by a local government—soaking up unprecedented tax dollars and county resources while returning little economic benefit.”

This year, Hamilton County is facing a $1.4 million budget deficit, largely due to debts incurred from the stadium deal. As a result, county officials are taking drastic steps to cover the shortfall, including selling a physical rehabilitation hospital for far less than it’s valued and withdrawing money from their rainy day fund. The Huffington Post has more:

If Hamilton County officials in Ohio were to post a sign outside Drake Center, a Cincinnati hospital the county plans to sell this week, the pitch might strike potential buyers as a little desperate: For Sale: physical rehabilitation hospital, valued in 2006 at nearly $30 million, available for $15 million cash this week. Must sell immediately. Local government has bills to pay.

Nearly 20 years after county officials promised that public financing for a pair of professional sports stadiums would help usher in a new era of economic vitality, the reality is somewhat different. The county’s agreement to build new stadium facilities for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cincinnati Reds has been described as “one of the worst professional sports deals ever struck by a local government” by the Wall Street Journal. Now, the county is poised to sell Drake Center at a price that critics say is far too low, just to cover one year of stadium debts and related promises. Even the planned sale won’t stop the county from having to raid its rainy day fund to cover a $1.4 million budget shortfall.

To learn more about why stadium deals like these can end up fleecing the public, read this recent post about a proposed stadium using taxpayer dollars in Minnesota.

The budget unveiled by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) this morning includes substantial changes to the American tax code, both for corporations and individuals. Ryan’s tax plan shrinks the number of income tax brackets from six to two, with marginal tax rates set at 10 percent and 25 percent. He repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), slices the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and repeals all of the health care taxes contained in the Affordable Care Act. It also repeals the repatriation tax on profits corporations earn overseas then bring back to the United States.

In all, those tax breaks amount to a $3 trillion giveaway to the richest Americans and corporations, according to the Tax Policy Center. Repealing the repatriation tax would add roughly $130 billion to that.

This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Ryan insisted that the plan would generate the same amount of revenue as the government currently receives. In true Ryan form, though, he wouldn’t say how:

RYAN: We’re taking the tax system and reforming it along the way this new bipartisan compromise and consensus is showing. Get rid of the special interest loopholes, special deductions, lower everybody’s tax rates, bring in at least as much revenue to the government but grow the economy and create jobs, and get spending under control so we can pay off this debt.

SCARBOROUGH: So you say that you want to bring as much revenue into the government even with lower tax rates. There are obviously only a few ways to do that as far as eliminating tax loopholes, whether you’re talking about the home mortgage loophole, the health care loophole, or the charitable interest deductions. Which one of those do you eliminate?

RYAN: We want to do this in the light of day and in front of everybody. So the Ways and Means Committee, which is in charge of the tax system, sent us the plan here, which is a 10 and 25 percent bracket for individuals and small businesses, and then they want to have hearings and, in light of day, show how they would go about doing this.

Watch it:

The taxes Ryan wants to repeal all primarily impact the richest Americans and corporations. Repealing the repatriation tax, as Republicans have attempted multiple times since taking control of the House in 2011, amounts to a huge giveaway to corporations. And ending the AMT and investment taxes from the ACA while dropping the top income tax rate would give massive tax breaks to the rich. That isn’t surprising — it’s virtually identical to what Ryan attempted in last year’s budget, which he called the “Path to Prosperity.”

Ryan’s plan for income taxes, meanwhile, is similar to GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s, and the Tax Policy Center found that his plan would reduce total federal revenues by $900 billion a year. Though Ryan offered no specifics, it’s clear that to avoid blowing a hole in the federal budget, the GOP will have to make up lost revenue by raising taxes on the poor and middle class (or by ending tax breaks that primarily benefit them) or by taking the axe to vital safety net programs that the poorest Americans — including women, infants, and children — depend on the most. Again, that shouldn’t be surprising — this edition of Ryan’s plan is simply a worse version of last year’s “Path to the Poorhouse.”

Former Goldman Sachs manager Greg Smith set Wall Street on fire last week when he used an editorial in the New York Times to announce his resignation and blasted the firm’s “toxic and destructive” culture that led traders to mislead customers in an ever-present quest for profits. The reaction from Wall Street was predictable — Goldman mobilized a massive smear campaign against Smith, saying he was upset with the size of his bonus and lack of promotion, and its claims were amplified with anonymous accounts filtered through the financial media.

Now, however, another former Goldman employee is speaking out. Jacki Zehner, who was the youngest woman and first female trader to make partner at the firm, left Goldman in 2002. On her own blog, Zehner wrote that Goldman suffered a cultural change that led it to promote employees who were “commercial animals/jerks” over those who were consumer oriented, as the Washington Post’s Suzy Khimm noted:

These structural changes ended up changing the culture of these firms as well, which was one of the reasons Zehner ultimately left Goldman. Colleagues who were “commercial” — e.g., pushed for the firm to profit over other considerations — were being promoted over those who were customer-oriented, she explained, decrying the “commercial animals/jerks” at the firm. “I sat and listened to arguments about how commercial people HAD to be promoted despite being poor team players, downright jerks or much more. That really pissed me off,” Zehner writes.

Zehner also acknowledged that one side effect of that culture change was the creation and sale of “so much junk” in the form of subprime mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, credit default options, and other complex financial instruments that ultimately led to the collapse of the housing market and the subsequent financial crisis. Like herself, Zehner says other customer-first Goldman employees left the firm because they couldn’t “sell the crap they were being asked to create“:

So much junk was created that should never have been with disastrous consequences and that will be a black mark on the whole industry for a long time, as it should be. That in and of itself is testimony to the industry in general having lost its way. When you create toxic waste and market it as if it is was not, you are indeed harming your moral fiber. I know many people who were in ‘that business’ who quit because they could not in good faith sell the crap they were being asked to create and market.

Goldman Sachs, of course, disputed Smith’s characterization and likely isn’t fond of Zehner’s either. CEO Lloyd Blankfein has said the firm is “doing God’s work,” and in responding to Smith’s editorial, said, “We will only be successful if our clients are successful.” That, however, doesn’t sound like the Goldman Sachs Smith and Zehner describe, the firm whose employees chortled about the “shitty deals” they were selling to consumers, or a part of the Wall Street culture a JPMorgan Chase whistleblower described when he said that exploiting customers was “the purpose of the banking organization.”

Welcome to ThinkProgress Economy’s morning link roundup. This is what we’re reading. Have you seen any interesting news? Let us know in the comments section. You can also follow ThinkProgress Economy on Twitter.

• This morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) will unveil the House Republican budget, which is expected to make dramatic changes to Medicare and the tax code [Washington Post]

• Legislation to ban insider trading by members of Congress, once seemingly assured of passage, has ground to a halt. [The Hill]

• Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) filed legislation yesterday that would repeal oil tax subsidies. [Politico]

• The U.S. Treasury made a $25 billion profit from its purchase of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis. [LA Times]

• Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum rarely talks about the economy in his standard stump speech. [Politico]

• Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner warned European countries against “draconian” austerity measures. [CNBC]

• Unemployed workers in multiple states will lose extended benefits in April. [Huffington Post]

• Homebuilding likely increased to a three-month high in February, economists projected ahead of today’s report. [Bloomberg]