(Cross posted from 21st Century Democrats)
Republicans are tired of hearing on TV that they are the "Party of No." So they promised a bunch of TV networks that they would unveil a new set of plans to serve as an alternative to President Obama's proposals on the budget, the housing crisis, and so on.
DKtv has a fairly good representation of how it turned out.
Later, we watched Congressman Mike Pence ask everyone to download their copy of the 19-page "Republican Road to Recovery" off GOP.gov (which has a format that bears a striking resemblance to the Obama campaign website, but I digress). Naturally, I popped over and downloaded the .pdf and "thumbed" through.
What a joke. The document is simply a compilation of the criticisms we've heard from House Republicans since President Obama took office. Actually, scratch that: this is garbage we've been listening to for decades, rushed out and dressed up to sound good for 2009.
The document is filled with completely meaningless charts and graphs. Connecting a square with the word "Republican" with a circle that says "Lower Taxes for Working Families" is nice and all, but without an actual plan, all you've done is make a pretty picture. Other parts of the document are just plain misleading, like the occasional graphs showing CBO estimates. Of course government spending as a percentage of GDP is higher in 2009 than it was in 2000. But making the first part green and the second part red? Are we serious here?
The DNC responded with a statement:
"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."
Please understand: out of 19 pages, seven pages are the cover, the back, a table of contents, and several "divider" pages between the various section. The pages of content, as I mentioned, have various pictures and graphs and useless charts. W're talking about barely twelve pages of content, including pictures. Remember when we first started using word processors and we found out we could make our homework assignments look longer by double spacing and adding graphics? A decade or so later, Republicans have figured it out too!
Governor Deval Patrick said something during the campaign that stuck with me. He talked about how the race is less about ideology, and more about "who is serious about government." There are many elected officials - like the President, Governor Patrick, and others - making the tough choices and seriously trying to find solutions. None of them, it would seem, is a House Republican.
Look, I've stayed up late to write papers in my life, and "The Republican Road to Recovery" reeks of that last minute rush. With so many Americans in real economic pain, all the Republican caucus can do is knee-jerk react to spending programs they don't like - even though they were just peachy about the spending of the Bush Administration. In short, they aren't serious. Hopefully, someday, they will engage in serious debate, instead of producing cheap, rushed, cosmetic documents like this one.
by Doug Foote