What happened when Ezra Klein asked Paul Ryan why he hates taxes

Ezra Klein describes What happened when I asked Paul Ryan why he hates taxes

"The key to understanding the House Republicans’ mindset, Ryan said, was that ‘our value-add  to the political system on all things is to help prevent a debt crisis.’ But it quickly became clear that the Republican Party’s fear of a debt crisis lags far behind their fear of further tax revenue. For House Republicans, it’s spending cuts or nothing. Actually, I shouldn’t say nothing. It’s spending cuts or House Republicans force another kind of crisis."

"“They already got their revenues,” Ryan said. “So what, we’ll roll over and they get more revenues? That’s not how it works. In the spirit of bipartisan compromise, they’ve gotten revenue increases already. We’ve yet to get anything as a result of it. It used to be 3-1. Isn’t that what Erskine says? $3 of spending cuts to every dollar of tax increase. The president in his own budget last year claimed 2.5 to 1. We’d argue with whether they actually achieved that, but where’s the 3? Where’s the two-and-a-half? Where’s the $1.8 trillion in cuts?”

As Montgomery reminded Ryan, though, Republicans got more than $1.8 trillion in spending cuts during the last session of Congress. “You got — what is it? — $2.2 trillion, $2.4 trillion between the [Budget Control Act] and the
sequester?”

“That was last session,” Ryan said. “We’re going forward now.”

Ryan’s wrong on that. Both the $630 billion in revenue that Democrats got as part of the fiscal cliff deal and the $2.2 trillion (or so) that Republicans got as part of the Budget Control Act both passed as part of the 112th Congress. The House approved the fiscal cliff deal Jan. 1, and President Obama signed the bill into law Jan. 2. The 113th Congress didn’t begin until Jan. 3. So neither side has gotten anything in this session of Congress."

This is why Paul Krugman doesn't take Paul Ryan seriously.