The House Republicans made a big deal about their new budget proposal today on the hill. They held a full press conference at the same time President Obama was answering questions during a live streaming web chat format. Rep, John Boehner was holding an 18 page pamphlet in his hands and calling it "The Recovery Road to Recovery. He was accompanied by "Britney" Cantor and pretty boy Paul Ryan to do the honors of getting down to the business of conservative ideas instead of being the "just say no to Obama" party. Well, their plan is not a plan. It has no information in it. The only person that made out today was the printer they used to copy this up. Contessa Brewer got a bit bothered by their ponzi press conference as much as I did. After their presser she ended the segment with this:
Brewer: But again, so far in this news conference, we're not hearing specifics on how the are planning to accomplish that. We'll keep listening. If we find out there are some new details out of this news conference we'll bring them to you.
Later on in the show, NBC's Mike Viqueira joined her to give us the low down on the Republican plan to save us all. It was hilarious.
Brewer: I am very frustrated Mike, because we were waiting for this, we cut away from the President to hear the big build-up. Republicans have a plan, they have ideas, they're not the party of no and all I heard in that news conference was what they don't like about the president's plan.
Viqueira: ...not Nora, Contessa, I'll pass that along. They did hold up this, John Boehner, they did hold up this budget book here and said now we have a plan now here's our budget. What it is, it is a plan and a proposal ... it outlines what the president wants to do ...
...it talks about what Republicans want to do in very broad terms, it does not have in the sense of a traditional budget, numbers with estimates an estimate for how much they can reduce the deficit, things of that nature. That they say will come next week when they take this up on the floor. For example, what would they do? They would undo what they would call the recent reckless and wastefull Democratic spending binge including the so called stimulus and omnibus bills ...
Brewer: But Mike, we've heard that before.
Yes
Brewer: We've heard them and today you get us all hyped up and you have our undivided attention and what happens when you get up and repeat the same criticism we've already heard. I didn't hear ideas. I heard the promise of ideas, and we're going to have more on x, y and z, but I didn't hear the ideas.
Viqueira: Right, so you're saying it's old wine in new bottles, that's what you're saying essentially.
Brewer: Well, that was a much pithier way of saying it.
That about sums up the conservatives. "Old wine in new bottles." has a nice ring, even if Boehner is hardly a new bottle any more.
Keep that quote in mind when considering the "budget" House Republicans unveiled this morning.
Stung by their stereotyping as the "party of no," House Republicans eagerly promoted the unveiling of their alternative to President Obama's budget today -- but when they finished speaking, reporters had one big question: Where's the actual budget? You know, the numbers that show deficit projections and discretionary spending?
There certainly was no hard budgetary data in the attractively designed 18-page packet that the House GOP handed out today, its blue cover emblazoned with an ambitious title: "The Republican Road to Recovery." When Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked what his goal for deficit reduction would be -- President Obama aims to halve the nation's spending imbalance within five years -- Boehner responded simply: "To do better [than Obama]."
And that's really all we got. 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.
