I haven’t read the whole thing, but here it is: http://www.gop.gov/solutions/budget/road-to-recovery-final
Thoughts? Comments? Discuss.
Why don’t you tell us what YOU think. And pull out some quotes. This is a very lazy and annoying way to start a debate.
And just when we got BrainGlutton to stop doing this…
By God, they’ve done it again! With a huge buildup, a fanfare, and a flourish of strumpets, they’ve brought forth an utter nullity, a vacuum with skin! They even had the good grace to time their rollout to detract from a Presidential speech, so that they could gain maximum impact for their empty bromide a-go-go!
General Jubilation T. Cornpone! Commander of Cornpone’s Defeat, Cornpone’s Rout, and Cornpone’s Utter Humiliation! Thank you, Jesus!
In the chart on page 16, I wonder why 2007 is a blue, Republican budget and 2008 is a red, Democratic budget. Was there a change in government between 2007 and 2008 that no one told me about?
I think the GOP pledge to link the federal budget to “families ability to pay” smacks of pandering to a group they really don’t give a shit about, except in terms of votes.
The idea of continuing Reagan’s failed “trickle down” economics, instead of going back to 70’s econ, or trying something new, is a stupid one. It will result in the continued decay of the world’s sole remaining superpower.
I was making dinner. Like I said, I haven’t finished it. So far, I think they’re not saying much. They’re bitching a lot about the Dem plan, but they’re not saying how they’re going to do the things they want to do. It’s mean-spirited in tone. There’s nothing (so far) that’s any different from the ranting criticism I hear on the cable news every day. I see no plan to fix the urgent issues that affect us and that are going to cost money to remedy. I’m not an economist and I don’t claim to understand most of the economic discussions other than on a superficial level. I don’t think 90% of congress does, either. But I want to know what YOU think.
Like the Bourbons, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Wait, is this that thing that Boehner was waving around? I’m pretty sure we were supposed to think that was a budget, weren’t we? Sure enough…
Now, I’ve seen budgets before, but that pdf sure doesn’t look like a budget to me. Hell, my personal budget has more actual line-items that those pages, and I can’t even commit to balancing a checkbook.
They claim we’ll see details next week, but when someone holds something up and claims that it’s a budget, I kind of expect it to be a, you know, budget. Maybe he should have said “Well, it’s just not true because – we’re sort of working on that, and we might have something to show sometime in the future, maybe, Mr. President.” Wouldn’t it have been less work to just cut out a few WSJ op-eds and put them in a binder? I’m pretty sure the end results would have been the same.
Get back to me when there is an actual budget from them, as until then, it’s just hand-waving. Literally.
I liked Gibb’s response, paraphrased here…
There are more pictures of windmills than numbers and there is only one windmill.
Awesome!
That ‘economic plan’ was surprisingly lacking in numbers.
They are going to keep energy and fuel costs low by eliminating a tax and wanting energy independence?
Many have called the President’s budget ‘the road to sefdom’?
I can’t read any more of it.
Looks like a lot of BS to me.
“Come in, We’r Open” sign on the door - that was cute. As if Democrats don’t want that… I stopped reading there. Just a bunch of the same ol shit with one picture of a windmill…
Let me guess. The centerpiece of the Republican budget is… wait for it… tax cuts for the rich!
Shortly after I started slogging through it (sadly, I couldn’t make it to the finish line), the term granfalloon popped into my mind. Not exactly the right context — although it does fit when applied to the Republican party — but Blessed Bokonon’s comment in the second paragraph of the Wiki article is probably what triggered the connection.
Dorothy Parker’s comment about Oakland seems to apply as well.
Good question. And, even coloring the 2009 budget red is sort of questionable. I think it includes several commitments, such as the $700 billion bailout, that were made under the Republican Administration. And, of course, the big jump from FY2008 to FY2009 has more to do with the complete economic meltdown and bailouts than anything else.
It is also sort of amusing how they started their plot in 2004, after Bush had already dug us into the deficit hole so that they conveniently miss the build-up of the deficits under the first few years of the Bush Administration.
There may be even more problems with that graph, but those are the ones that I notice.
Republicans?
Does anyone even care what those fools think anymore? Really? There’s people so stupid they’d listen to them after the last 8 years?
Truly amazing. They must have the IQ of slim-mold.
Gertrude Stein.
The CBO said, about the stimulus plan, that by the time it was likely to start having any sort of effect at all, the economy would likely be back up on its own. As such, saying these measures are “necessary” seems a bit dubious. Really the government would be best off spending X random amount of money on any other halfassed proposal to fix things BUT say real loud how it’s going to fix everything. The value of X is pretty inconsequential, it really only needs to be large enough to convince everyone that our government is on the job.
It reads like a college kids term paper that they started writing the night before it was due. No details or data to back up any of their points. A sampling:
Health Care Reform:
What policies? How would their tax incentives achieve the goal they’re targeting?
So, the ultra-wealthy can pay a little more for drugs. This sounds vaguely like “tax the rich” which I thought was a bad thing. Hell, just cut Medicare for anyone that’s in the upper 1% of income. I’m sure the likes of Buffett and Soros rely on Medicare for their health care.
The “plan” for energy is more drilling. That’s not “alternative” and it’s not “renewable”. They do make a good point about nuclear being on the table, but again, no real plans on how to proceed.
Also, the current economic crisis was largely caused by the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Why it took 30 years for that Act to bring the economy down is left unsaid.
The last section makes good points about how cheap credit in response to the tech bubble bursting and 9/11 was allowed to continue for too long. They may want to look at who was in charge of those types of things during that time frame.
Not much substance, but it’s really more of a PR piece than any type of serious policy proposal. I’m sure it’ll work fine for the usual suspects in that regard.
The point about nuclear power…
Didn’t I learn on these very boards that one of the biggest barriers to nuke power is that the reactors are made in only one place in the world and that there’s a 10-year waiting list? Is it possible to bring nukes on line faster than that through “removing government barriers?”
I think they missed one big, important step in their plan. When do they collect the underpants?
(I would give so much for one talking head on cable to make that reference. Doubly-so if the reference was in a question asked to someone presenting or defending it.)