Wrong-Way Walker's Tax 'Reforms' Were So Radical...

That even Paul Ryan is running in the opposite direction on one key item:

Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a deduction from tax payments that disproportionally hit the working poor in the pocketbook and act as a disincentive to get into the work force and earn a paycheck.

The reduction in tax payments thus raises take home pay.

Pretty basic Republican, pro-workforce conservative economics, right? And aren't the US and state tax codes replete with advantages for upper-income earners and businesses, so how about one for those at the bottom?

Ryan, with a new anti-poverty proposal, is now in favor of expanding the credit, known as EITC: 

His poverty plan, full of policy detail and scholarly citations, is the culmination of more than a year of hearings and personal visits to poor urban areas around the country.

It features a few pillars that have Democratic support: expanding the subsidy to the working poor known as the Earned Income Tax Credit...,

But cutting the EITC and thus reducing working poor' take home pay was among Wrong-Way Walker's first round of tax increases, as I noted in March, 2011, despite his denials proven false by independent analyses that he had ever raised any tax.

As PolitiFact noted:

But what about his 2011-"13 budget?

It included some tax cuts, but also tax increases.

That"s according to the nonpartisan state Legislative Fiscal Bureau, which both parties have long cited as a neutral scorekeeper on budget matters.

The bureau determined that Walker included three tax increases in the budget totaling $49.4 million over the two-year period.

The largest involved a reduction in a state tax credit for low-income working families, known as theearned income credit. A tax credit reduces the amount of tax you owe.

In this case, the earned income tax credit is in place for both state and federal taxes. It"s refundable, so individuals with little or no income tax liability may still receive the credit.

Walker"s plan would decrease the tax credit for families with more than one child, allowing the state to collect an additional $41.3 million in taxes over two years from those families. (The credit would actually go up for families with just one child.)