I would have hoped that the mainstream media give at least a tenth of the scrutiny to the GOP alternative that they do to Obama's budget. But a First Read blog entry on MSNBC? Google news does not show many other stories on this subject. I guess I did blink and miss it.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/26/1867398.aspx/snip
A GOP budget with no hard numbers Posted: Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:43 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Congress, Republicans, Economy
From NBC's Mark Murray
Yesterday, House Republicans made a pretty big deal about unveiling their budget alternative.
In fact, we received this email from a House GOP spokeswoman, "Given the President’s comments
night that, 'we haven’t seen a budget out of ,' 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."
The House GOP leaders say they'll unveil more details next week. "We were always planning on putting out an overall blueprint, which we did today," House Minority Leader Boehner's office emails First Read. "The numbers will come next week with a multi-hundred page piece of legislation that Paul Ryan is currently drafting."
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. "While there had been talk that House Republicans were overriding their Senate counterparts to offer a budget alternative, it's clear after this announcement that neither of them have anything to offer but criticism."
/snip