The Party of No (New Ideas)

Original Link: http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/the-party-of-no-new-ideas.html

by AzBlueMeanie:

Thursday was the day the big bad GOP was supposed to show up the White House by finally announcing its own economic agenda, "The Republican Road to Recovery." It was promoted heavily by Faux News and cable outlets and by conservative blogs like Politico. So what happened? The GOP failed to deliver as promised.

Here's how Mark Nickolas at politicalblog.com described it:

This afternoon, GOP House leadership called a press conference to roll-out their alternative budget. The cable news greatly hyped the event in advance. But like so much of the Republican rhetoric we get these days, it's nothing but hot air.

There was no budget. No numbers. No data. No projections. No specifics. Nothing but a slick 18-page booklet of their old talking points -- massive tax cuts for the wealthy, unspecific entitlement cuts, and no more bailouts. That was about it.

In other words, nada, zip. The media got punked by the GOP leadership's insane clown posse.

Here are some comments on today's event Mark Nickolas' Blog: GOP's Lack Of Seriousness Shines Bright (Part 2):

First Read:

Yesterday, House Republicans made a pretty big deal about unveiling their budget alternative.

In fact, we received this email from a House GOP spokewoman, "Given the President’s comments [Tuesday] night that, 'we haven’t seen a budget out of [Republicans],' we wanted to make sure to make you all aware that we are introducing our Republican Budget Alternative tomorrow."

And then what happens today? House Republicans release a 19-page document that contains no hard spending numbers or deficit projections. Per the AP, "One of the few hard bits of information is a promise to simplify the tax code and cut income tax rates to 10 percent for people making $100,000 or less down. They also promise to cut domestic spending below current levels but don't say whether they are exempting Social Security. It's impossible to determine the projected deficit based on their offering."

...Not surprisingly, the Democratic National Committee pounced on the GOP's budget -- or lack thereof. "After 27 days, the best House Republicans could come up with is a 19-page pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate," said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

The Washington Monthly:

House GOP leaders held a press conference this morning to prove a) they could put together a budget; b) that they could be the "party of yes"; and c) that their agenda is about more than just saying the opposite of whatever President Obama wants.

Instead, they unveiled a "budget" with no numbers or even budget estimates, and spent most of the press conference criticizing the president.

Republican leaders posted their "Road to Recovery" report online, and it's more or less a joke. Apparently -- I hope you're sitting down -- the minority party believes the nation will thrive if we cut taxes, stick with Bush's energy policies, and pursue more deregulation. How much would this cost? They don't say. How would this affect the deficit? They don't say.

Then there was this smack down delivered by Contessa Brewer of MSNBC who was not happy about getting punked by the GOP leadership's insane clown posse ("we cut away for that?") h/t Daily kos:

The Republican Road to Recovery... sounds like a Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "road" movie back to the past.