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.)