Ta-Dah, a Republican Budget Appears (*Update)

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has or is about to introduce a Republican budget to the House. This morning in an op-ed printed in the Wall St. Journal, Ryan highlighted his new proposal. And this one actually has some details-- detailed failure, nevertheless.

• $4 trillion tax cut (yes that's trillion not billion)
• Medicare voucher system
• 5 year spending freeze on anything none military

In the midst of the strongest recession in 80 years, the GOP still can't figure out that this is not 1929. Actually, a spending freeze didn't even work 80 years ago. Such nonsense has long been discarded as economic insanity. But now it is the GOP platform.

Enough with the details of a very unpopular plan from a very unpopular Party. Let's do some politics here. Why didn't the GOP put in place a spending freeze when they were in power? They are the ones who ran up the largest deficit in history. President Bush left Barack Obama a $1.4 trillion deficit. Who are they to lecture anyone on budgets or economics. Just last week they introduced a budget without a single number in it. Now today they are introducing a budget that freezes spending for 5 years?? One of the best things anyone could do is not to take economic advice from the people who presided over that last 8 years of complete failure.

Since they are out of power, the GOP has returned to its farcically untrue fiscal conservative platform. If they were so worried about spending and deficit budgets, they were in a prime position to change all that. They didn't and if given the opportunity to be voted back into power, they still wouldn't.

Here's what the OMB had to say about Ryan's budget: "If you expected a GOP alternative to the failed policies of the past that got our country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, then I have two words for you: April Fool's."

***More Budget Madness below the fold***

Sen. John McCain is offering his own budget proposal as well. So what's that going to do to Rep. Ryan's House version? Well it pretty much means Ryan's proposal is Dead, with a capital D Dead. But even McCain's version doesn't look to be going any where either. Since neither Ryan's or McCain's budget has the backing of GOP leadership it appears the only way Republicans can alter Obama's budget is through amendments (which I would like to add is not an alternative budget proposal).

Sam Stein has already found some mighty holes in Ryan's budget. It seems he used old Bush era numbers when formulating his proposal. Ryan's spending estimates are not backed by CBO projections. But hey at least it has numbers, hastily put together numbers but numbers all the same.