VIDEOS: Republican stunt men roll out GOP budget

By GottaLaff

And here you thought stunt men were only in the movies. The fuss-budget Rushpublics and stunt people do have one thing in common: They both work in fantasyland:



Last week they pretended to roll out their fudge-it. Today Paul Ryan actually presented something-or-other in the song stylings of the usual Tee Vee Machine persona of the condescending pre-school teacher, a la Ba-ba-ba-Bobby Jindal. They just keep on embarrassing themselves, don't they?

In face of all this criticism, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is now backtracking and admitting that last week’s budget was just a “marketing” stunt. Asked by Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski if the budget legislation he’s introducing in the House today is “a little bit more clear than the one we saw last week,” Ryan responded by claiming last week’s budget wasn’t a budget at all, but rather just a “marketing document”:

RYAN: Yes. The thing you saw last week was not the alternative budget. This is our alternative budget we’re bringing to the floor today. […]

What was released last week was more of a marketing document. Not a budget. This is our budget.

Despite his admission, Ryan’s budget proposal doesn’t appear to make any more economic sense than it did last week. Indeed, despite the growing recession, Ryan is calling for a five-year spending freeze which, as Pat Garofalo explains, would “negate the stimulus, while betting economic recovery will occur thanks to an abundance of supply-side tax cuts.”

And they want America to take them seriously? Not if they keep this up:

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Republicans Still Wrangling Over Alternative Budget

I heard Ryan when he just proposed the budget (no vid yet), and as expected it was just the same old crap repackaged with a bow.

"Republican leaders in the Senate are clashing with John McCain, their party's 2008 presidential nominee. He wants to offer an alternative to the Democratic budget and they don't," CQ Politics reports.

"The behind-the-scenes battle is part of a larger split in the Republican Party. Some in the GOP believe their best strategy is to resist President Obama's agenda and take carefully chosen shots through amendments they all agree on; others want the party to do more to demonstrate how a Republican imprint would be different.

Meanwhile, First Read notes that a week after House Republicans "held a press conference to unveil a budget alternative that had no hard numbers in it, they take another crack at it when Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, formally unveils the alternative at 10:30 am ET."

Cannibalism

By GottaLaff

Via BarbinMD at Kos, we get to witness Rushpublican infighting. How fun is that?

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) raised objections to an abbreviated alternative budget "blueprint" released today -- but were told by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) they needed to back the plan, according to several Republican sources.

... he and Cantor were reportedly told by Boehner and Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) they needed to move more quickly to counter Democrats' charge they were becoming the "Party of No," according to House GOP staffers.

“In his egocentric rush to get on camera, Mike Pence threw the rest of the Conference under the bus, specifically Paul Ryan, whose staff has been working night and day for weeks to develop a substantive budget plan," said a GOP aide heavily involved in budget strategy.

"I hope his camera time was gratifying enough to justify erasing the weeks of hard work by dozens of Republicans to put forth serious ideas," the person added.

And thank you for joining us for another edition of "Republicans Eating They're Own".