The Republican's April Fool's Joke On Us...

...the GOP gives us a budget with no numbers. Just more criticisms of President Obama.

If you want to read it, click here. You'll have to change the downloaded 10 page document to a .pdf to read it. I did. Its ridiculous. Yet again, we're waiting for a real proposal and some real ideas from the GOP. Yet again, they haven't delivered.

Here are some highlights (thanks to politiFact for giving this synopsis):

• Spending: The Republican plan says the Obama budget spends too much and is "reckless." The Republicans say they would undo wasteful spending from recent legislation such as the economic stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill for this year. But they don't specify what programs or how much. The Republican plan also says it would "cut overall nondefense spending by reforming or eliminating a host of wasteful programs deemed ineffective by various government entities." So what programs and how much? The plan doesn't say.

• Lowering taxes and creating jobs: In a rare moment of specificity, the Republican plan says it would rewrite the tax code so that people making up to $100,000 would be taxed at a marginal rate of 10 percent and everyone above that would be taxed 25 percent. Fair enough. So how much would that cost? The plan doesn't say. It offers a few other tax-cutting ideas — tax deductions for businesses and an overall vow to keep the Bush tax cuts — but again there are no estimates about the impact on revenues.

• Controlling debt: The Republican plan says it will control debt by ending spending on bailouts for Wall Street. For a savings of ... hmm, doesn't say. The plan also opposes runaway inflation and promotes keeping the cost of living low for families and entrepreneurs. Sounds great! What that means for the federal budget, we couldn't tell you.

Now, we should note that the Republican document has some numbers in it. But they're numbers about Obama's budget, used to illustrate the party's complaints, under labels like "Future Debt Burden" and "Expanding the Size of Government."
What the Republican plan lacks is the numbers that really matter, numbers that would show how much the Republicans propose to spend on various parts of government.
There are many pressing questions in the public debate that an alternative budget could answer. For example, if we're going want to cut wasteful spending, what programs should be cut? Also, what will cutting taxes do to deficit projections in years to come? But the Republican plan doesn't provide any answers.

*UPDATE*

The Republicans have released the actual budget today. Guess what it rides on: tax cuts for the rich. Again. Because that sure worked for the last eight years.

I'll post some more after I finish reading the actual budget. I'm guessing I'll have more than enough material to make fun of for my next post.