April 1, 2009: Republican Admits ‘Budget’ was ‘Marketing Document’

Republican Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) admits that the “budget proposal” offered the previous week by the GOP in response to President Obama’s own budget proposal (see March 26, 2009) was never anything more than a “marketing document.” On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Ryan says, “The thing you saw last week was not the alternative budget, this is our alternative budget.” Ryan is referring to a budget the GOP intends to release later today. The “budget” touted on the floor of the House by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was a “marketing document,” Ryan says. “Somewhere along the line there was a misimpression given that that was our budget.” In the Wall Street Journal, Ryan says the GOP budget will include the following:
A five-year non-defense spending freeze;
Cutting the deficit 50 percent more than Obama’s proposal by 2019;
More oil exploration and fewer regulations on pollution;
A revamping of Medicare for those currently below age 55;
Making permanent the Bush administration’s tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and a simplified tax code that taxpayers could choose to use.
Of President Obama’s budget, Ryan says, “If this agenda comes to pass, it will mark this period in history as the moment America turned European.” [The Hill, 4/1/2009] The Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, says that a spending freeze as advocated by the GOP budget would be calamitous for the American economy. The freeze would negate the entirety of the Obama administration’s multi-billion stimulus package, and would rely entirely on economic recovery generated by supply-side tax cuts. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compares the idea to the economic ideas that led to the Great Depression: “[I]t sounds very much like [former President Herbert] Hoover. This is a doctrine which was tried in 1932 and failed. In a period of international deflation, the worst thing you can do is join in the deflation by cutting spending.” [Think Progress, 4/1/2009]