GOP Budget — Fail More Edition — UPDATE!
So, our story so far is that the GOP delivered its budget pamphlet last week — sans any numbers — and to the derision of even the press. Details are still fairly thin, but Rep Paul Ryan was interviewed on Bloomberg this weekend and he can’t tell the interviewer any numbers, either (although, they exist — Ryan claims to have submitted something to the CBO for scoring) — certainly not how much the GOP Budget adds to the deficit:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlUVk0vCx3s[/youtube]
More, Citizens for Tax Justice have taken the data they could get and did an analysis of the income tax proposals and this is the overview:
- Over a fourth of taxpayers, mostly low-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the President’s plan.
- The richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $100,000 less, on average, under the House GOP plan than they would under the President’s plan.
- The income tax proposals in the House GOP plan, which is presented as a fiscally responsible alternative to the President’s plan, would cost over $300 billion more than the Obama income tax cuts in 2011 alone.
Today is supposed to be the day that they do their budget rollout, part II. And given that at least the House is expected to vote on their budget resolution this week, I’ll note that the GOP budget is now being released without any time to read it before the debate and votes start. Which has a certain symmetry to it, although they’ll claim to be victimized by that in short order.
UPDATE: Ryan has an Op-Ed in the WSJ (an op-ed people, no reporting), and here’s the sum total of the new ideas apparently:
- Tax cuts for wealthy and corporations (been awhile since we’ve tried that)
- 5-year freeze on discretionary spending (awesome! this is an upgrade from the McCain one year freeze!)
- Drill baby drill!
- Some handwaving re: Medicare and Social Security. It looks like (which is why I call it handwaving) that they want to replace Medicare with vouchers or some payment. Unless you are over 55 then you get Medicare. So I guess that the new idea here — if you can call it an idea at all — is to replace the whole business of health care for seniors with an inadequate pot of money.
So rejoice, everybody — it is still April Fools! (And there still isn’t a bill or anything like that to read.)
Tags: GOP FAIL
They seriously need a new PR department. Are they really planning on releasing their budget on April Fool’s Day?
This is what happens when you let interns from Regent’s University write your budget while you go out for martinis.
LOL Jason!
LOL! I missed that they are actually releasing this on April Fool’s Day — which means it is double plus good to laugh at this thing when they release it.
I thought that they were to announce this thing at 10:30 and haven’t seen anything on it yet, but did update this with Ryan’s op-ed in the WSJ. Which broadly hints that their new ideas consist of John McCain’s old ideas from the Presidential campaign.The one he lost pretty decisively.
I don’t think they’ll announce anything. I heard that Ryan admitted that the GOP budget-ish proposal would add the deficit “a lot.” I think they’re better off just killing the idea quietly.
Where is this budget? Can they really get away with pulling this stunt again?
From HuffPo:
“House and Senate Republicans emerged from an early morning meeting in a closed House chamber Wednesday morning to unveil their much-awaited budget alternative.
Roughly a hundred GOP men and women descended the East Capitol steps in a light drizzle to announce their product to the American people.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined their colleagues, entering from the side, and addressed the gathered reporters.
After ripping the Democratic budget as too expensive, Boehner said that “Republicans in the House will offer a better solution that’ll be less on spending, less on taxes and a lot less on debt for our kids and grandkids.”
But there was no budget. “Do you guys have a formal budget yet?” asked a reporter.
“Mr. Ryan will outline the Republican budget at 10:30 this morning. And yes we do have it,” replied Boehner, referring to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.).
A silence followed, with reporters apparently unsure what to ask next.”
On the last day of Jimmy Carter’s Administration the total national debt was roughly $900 Billion. On the last day of Uncle Ronny’s Administration the national debt was over $2.7 TRILLION!!! And the Repub.’s have a problem with deficit spending???
For the last thirty years, everytime they take over the White House they deficit spend to line their own pockets and complain about it later.