“It’s clear that there is much more that we can do to protect our children and grandchildren from the unprecedented trillions in additional debt proposed by the administration,” – Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“This is scary. I believe we’ve reached the tipping point now … and if we tip over, it’s the point of no return. … We cannot go down this road.” – Senator Richard Shelby
“The stimulus, the omnibus, the budget–it’s all one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment.” – House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Their solution to the nearly two trillion dollar deficit? This bit of sketch comedy:
Aside from those two big-ticket items, House GOP leaders came up with less than $25 billion in actual program reductions and terminations over the next five years, or about $5 billion in cuts per annum — less than a third of the $17 billion in program reductions and terminations that Obama has proposed for the fiscal year that begins in October.
The GOP plan — which would rid the federal government of the office of the Treasurer, cut a program dedicated to creating safe school routes, and bar federal employees from getting paid for full-time union work, for example — was greeted with derision by analysts dedicated to reducing the size of government.
Well played. At least you didn’t release this idea on April Fools Day.
(via)
TR
I guess protecting our children and grandchildren only applies to fiscal dangers. If we’re talking about the danger of speeding cars on their way to school, our children and grandchildren are shit out of luck.
Ash
I just don’t understand how this happens. These guys ran the country for 6 years. Even though they did a piss poor job, at least they got some things done, right? So why are they all of a sudden incapable of producing ANYTHING feasible or credible?
No comprendo.
Johnny B. Guud
I really believe that the Republicans would be better off if they just keep their heads down, read a book, don’t say anything, or even take the summer recess early. The Democrats seem perfectly capable of shooting themselves in the foot of their own accord, without any help from the GOP.
Whenever the GOP comes out with some annoucement, you might as well be playing circus music in the background.
cleek
OT: wanna-be assassin on the loose.
Jon
The article is short on specifics. I’d like to see some comments from some of the analysts of which they speak. Not that I doubt that the Republican proposal is viewed as laughable. It’s like the fucking Keystone Cops in that caucus.
MattF
In the future, as envisioned by the Republican party, the $20 bills in your pocket will be signed by Bozo the Clown.
camchuck
Hard to believe these are the same jokers who ran on fiscal responsibility and proceeded to double the national debt over 8 years in a strong economy.
Republicans seem quite content to live in a social-ism-free fantasyland. As long as the levers of power are kept away from them, I guess I’m content with it too.
El Cid
Also, they recommended savings of over $2,000 per year by recommending catered Senate functions make sure and split a Subway’s $5 footlong instead of buying two different sandwiches, thus saving up to $1 per sandwich.
It’s time for the grownups to come back to Washington and replace all those ‘W’s on the keyboards and to bring that vegetable lady back to life.
Da Bomb
All I have to say is… “huh?’
Why is it that anytime they cutback on spending, it involves some sort of school program or some government office that is necessary. They never really cutback unnecessary crap.
Cutting back on funding on a program dedicated to the safety of school routes, really?
NonyNony
@Ash:
I question your premise. Look back over the six years from 2001-2007 and tell me what, exactly, the Republicans in Congress “got done”. Not what they “got done because the Administration wanted it” but rather what they “got done by their own initiative”.
It’s a piss poor record, frankly. They accomplished next to nothing that wasn’t an outright demand from the Administration itself. The only thing I can think of might be the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, but I’m not sure if that was something being pushed by the Administration or not. (Plus it was nicely bi-partisan, so the Republicans may have relied on Democratic “moderates” to do all the hard work anyway).
These guys have always been nearly useless on their own. It’s just that from 2001-2007 they had a guy in the White House that would tell them what they were supposed to be doing and they’d jump to do it. Now their leader is a guy with a radio show who doesn’t understand much about the sausage making that goes on in the legislature, but who does understand what’s good for ratings. They’re on their own as far as these kinds of proposals go, so they’re kind of screwed.
Morbo
@cleek: Poor oppressed citizen is only trying to express his 2nd amendment rights, obviously.
It’s always reassuring to know that the only people more embarrassing than Democratic senators are Republican senators. They whined about Obama’s cuts in the executive branch as being symbolic only and this is what they propose when they’re serious. I can haz better opozishun party?
Bill E Pilgrim
Next up: The Republicans announce their response to Obama’s speech with their own “Ugly American Tour” in which leaders of the GOP give speeches to assembled foreign dignitaries that consist of talking VERY LOUDLY AND SLOWLY about how they’re going to sue someone if they don’t get the hotel room that was in the brochure.
Aaron
I would argue that much of this is due to the fact that the Republican party apparatus is built to win election, not govern. They stick to talking points, capitalize on divisive or wedge social issues, and play up this faux populism that belies the fact that 50% of their platform is oriented around suppressing labor organization and wages.
So, basically, the current crop of Republicans are built around exploiting divisions, not bringing people together. This does not make for a party that is good at coming up with ideas or governing.
someguy
Because they kept increasing spending for 6 years under Bush, the Republicans basically lost the credibility and in my mind the right to criticize anybody else for high spending. They should sit down and shut the fuck up. Or better yet, leave the room and take their plastic hair with them. The Democrats look stellar and like a model of fiscal restraint in comparison to these losers.
Dave
So, um, when is defense spending going to finally be on the table? There is so much inherent waste in procurement and R&D that you could save billions upon billions of dollars without impacting the readiness of our armed forces.
Montysano
Via Sullivan, a nice graphic re: Hussein Obama X’s grand socia1ist experiment.
burnspbesq
Just saw a commenter over at TPM analogize the Republican Party to the Donner Party. Seems at first blush to be a fairly good analogy.
Zifnab
There’s a bunch of pork and waste in the budget that’s been building over a generation. But it all leads back to some constituency or another that the GOP doesn’t think it can afford to piss off.
Can’t cut back on oil subsidies – that’d piss off Exxon. Can’t cut back on military spending – that’d piss off Raytheon and Boeing. Can’t cut back on tax cuts – that’d piss off the glibertarian base.
At the end of the day, all the GOP can find to cut is programs with a steep partisan angle. Screw unions. Screw teachers. Screw the poor. Screw oversight. I’m waiting for some GOoPer to suggest we could save $5 billion a year by getting rid of the Government Accountability Office and, when the office disputes them, enter into a tirade about the Big Accountability Lobby pulling all the strings in Washington.
Thomas Levenson
I was going to blog this, and then I realized that I did not have the reserve of ridicule left in me late last night to give satisfaction.
Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest — I needed something to make the evacuated cranium dial go to 11, and I couldn’t find it. Thanks for this.
wilfred
Mixed metaphor of the day. But he shouldn’t worry so much, we’ll jump off that bridge when we get to it.
Comrade javafascist
@TR
See, if you allow the kids to be killed early enough, they won’t need to worry about the debt. Also, the Donner caucus solution to Social Security (not that one is needed) will be to encourage all 16-year-olds to take up smoking thus ensuring they don’t live long enough to collect. Empathy in governance is for suckers.
Flitterbic
$5 billion a year? Pffft.
If they had demanded that Dijon mustard be banned from all Federal food service facilities I’d know they were serious. Runaway condiment spending is a burden we can not spread deliciously on the shoulders of future generations.
gypsy howell
@Dave:
Not to mention, at what point can we begin to ask the question “readiness to do WHAT exactly, to WHOM, and WHERE, and WHY?”
That’s the real question we ought to be asking.
flounder
I wonder if they made another flow chart? Something like this:
Fewer sidewalks -> Hate on children -> Republican Fiscal Responsibility —>$$$$$$
chopper
@wilfred:
i’ll bet he feels like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sun.
Comrade Dread
Boehner: Okay, guys, Obama is asking us to put up or shut up about our deficit whining. We need to get some cuts. Real cuts in place.
Ron Paul: Well, we could withdraw from Iraq, slash our military budget by a third and still be outspending most of our rivals by a 3:1 ratio.
Boehner: Okay, someone take Grandpa back to the home. Next?
Michelle Bachmann: We could impeach Obama.
Boehner: How does that slash anything from the budget?
Bachmann: Birth certificate!
Boehner: Next?
Palin: I can see the Treasury from my house!
Boehner: Okay, get rid of Treasurer. Good idea.
McConnell: What about Social Security and Medicare?
Boehner: Old people vote, Mitch. Come on people, we need some serious cuts that say we Republicans are serious now about cutting government spending.
Paul: We could gut the Farm Bill!!!
Boehner: Get him out of here.
Bachmann: What if we just cut some subsidies for schools?
Boehner: Schools are popular.
Bachmann: What if we cut funding to make safe roads to schools? We could force parents to drive their kids, thereby making the oil and auto lobbies happy.
Boehner: Brilliant! How much does that give us?
McConnell: About 25 billion.
Boehner: Whoa… let’s slow things down there, Sparky. 25 billion is a lot of money.
Paul: The budget was almost four trillion!
McConnell: How about we break it up over five years?
Boehner: Perfect. Get it on a powerpoint slide!
flounder
@ Comrade Dread
Hilarious, except I think somewhere in the middle of the discussion, Boehner asks everyone to “speed this thing up, ‘cuz I got a tanning appointment in 20 minutes.”
El Cid
Yeah, last time we tried to get a peace dividend under George Bush senior by shutting down old and useless bases (and yes, I was stationed on one and it was an ancient, now purposeless, pathetic boondoggle waste of money)…
…it all then got blamed on Bill Clinton and the bullshit right wing myth took hold that Bill Clinton hollowed out / destroyed the U.S. military.
El Cid
@Comrade Dread: That’s awesome. Worth front paging.
Brachiator
And they’ve been working on this for, what, hours?
This is really going to knock Obama’s recent trips off the news pages. Everybody will want to talk about the GOP economic plans.
Well, almost everybody. OK. Nobody.
bob h
Meanwhile, there are unmistakable signs that the downturn is nearing its end. The Republicans lose again.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Comrade Dread:
Comic genius, my man.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Comrade Dread: Good use of theatre of the absurd there. Bravo.
Elie
The Republicans are just a cancer. An aberrant cell line that is out of synch with the wellbeing of the body.
With cancer, you don’t try to make sense of it, or reason with it, you cut it out (with elections) and you use chemotherapy (laws and regulations) to support the “body” and fight off its ability to replace normal functioning cells with its own.
Its a waste of time to think of them beyond that. They will never “make sense” or offer anything to help the larger needs of the body. They only have their own atavistic need for survival — an imperative that they pursue aggressively but it requires no more thought than a cancer cell evidences.
Sour Kraut
@wilfred:
Aren’t you throwing the baby out with the bus?
RememberNovember
So Boehner et al, who bitch and moan about teh Omnibus and TARP, still cash checks from the US Gov’t on behalf of their constituents. Frakkin’ hypocrites.
Do we really need to reiterate the definition of insanity? Or do we just flip to the Miriam Webster entry on the GOP?
scav
@Sour Kraut:
shouldn’t that at least be a slightly older child thrown out while on an unsafe school-bus route?
EconWatcher
“there are unmistakable signs that the downturn is nearing its end”
Sorry, bob h. Wish I could agree with ya. But I think we’re just in the eye of the storm.
Seen the projections for continuing foreclosures and declines in housing prices? What do you think that’ll do to these allegedly recovering financial institutions? And since when is losing another half million jobs a sign of recovery?
I think things are going to look really ugly by November of 2010. Who gets blamed? I’m not sure, but I have my fears.
Cat Lady
Have they found the year 2011 yet for their yearly deficit projection chart? That was FAIL awesome.
Cain
@Zifnab:
They’ve already pissed off everyone, so I don’t see the big deal.
cain
DonkeyKong
You forgot a tax credit for punching crippled orphans in the throat. That one is pure free market darwin style innovation!
Sour Kraut
@scav:
Only if you give it a slap in the face first.
bago
@Sour Kraut: I thought a slap in the teabags was more appropriate.
Calouste
Did any “journalist” ask Senator Richard Shelby to put in words why it is “the point of no return” and why “we cannot go down this road”?
No?
Why am I not surprised that the media let the Republicans get away with vague fearmongering rather than forcing them to provide specifics?
jcricket
No absurdities, that was a CSPAN-III transcript. Really, I saw it.
Seriously, we could indeed get out of our ridiculous war in Iraq, cut military spending by 1/3rd and in zero ways be less safe. We could go to single-payer national healthcare, cut spending by 1/2 and still be equal to the most expensive (per capita) nationalized healthcare system (Switzerland) out there – while eliminating the cause of 70% of personal bankruptcies and improving productively greatly.
We could drastically increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations, shoring up our balance sheets and providing much needed social services without breaking the backs of the poor. While we’re at it, get rid of the usurious pay-day industry, bank/credit card fees and shenanigans, etc.
Everyone’s about the cuts, when what we need, frankly, are increases in just about everything the government provides to actual citizens. If the corporations are going to continue hoarding the wealth (middle class wages stagnant for 30+ years now) then we’ll have to redistribute it via the government. If corporations were smart, they’d pay the bottom 95% a fuck-ton more, because that 95% of the population buys the shit that drives corporate revenue/profits, which drives share prices, which makes rich people richer.
But no, we’ll just have people gorge themselves on credit and manipulate our earnings for the quick buck and not worry about 5-10 years down the road. Idiots.
jcricket
I don’t mind the fear-mongering. I’m not even that incensed by the media reporting. What’s unconscionable is the Democrats giving in to this fear-mongering, accepting of the Republican frame, failure to counter-balance this idiocy by calling it what it is.
If Democrats made a campaign (essentially) out of day-lighting and exposing the ridiculousness of Republicans, and stuck to our guns, the Republicans would just get more and more outrageous, which ultimately benefits us – as the public doesn’t really like the crazy (well, 70-80% don’t like it). Instead, we let Republicans ratchet up the rhetoric until it’s very hot, then we give in.
chuck
No, we can’t go down this road. It’s too unsafe to drive down, because some dingleberry cut all the safety funding.
YellowJournalism
I think it’s more likely that someone thought it up while taking their morning poo.
Martian Buddy
Or the Benny Hill theme.