Administration Criticizes GOP’s ‘Bush Era’ Budget

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/04/01/administration-criticizes-gops-bush-era-budget/

Administration Criticizes GOP’s ‘Bush Era’ Budget
John D. McKinnon reports on the White House.


A senior Obama administration official said the Republican budget alternative described by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal amounts to a continuation of Bush-era policies that helped lead to the current economic distress.

The Republican plan would freeze most non-defense spending for five years, overhaul Medicare for people 54 and younger by turning the benefit into a premium support payment, establish a means test for future Social Security benefits (potentially reducing payments to wealthier Americans) and simplify the tax code by establishing a new system with two rates of 10% and 25%.

The Obama administration official said the Republican alternative appears to include at least $4 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, with “an overwhelming” share going to wealthier Americans. The GOP plan also fails to invest in some high priorities such as education, infrastructure, public safety and biomedical research, the official said. The Medicare move would turn the program into a voucher system “in which they basically say, `here’s a check and you’re on your own,’” the official said, adding that the amount of the voucher would quickly fall behind the rising cost of health care.

“If you expected a GOP alternative to the failed policies of the past that got our country into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, then I have two words for you: April Fool’s,” said Kenneth Baer, communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget.

AND BONER WHINES!

UPDATE: House GOP Leader John Boehner’s office responded. “It may be April Fool’s Day, but the severe impact the President’s budget will have on our nation is hardly a laughing matter,” said Antonia Ferrier, press secretary to Boehner. “Attacking a Republican plan that curbs spending, creates jobs, and controls debt is the Democrats’ not so subtle strategy to divert attention away from their own deeply flawed plan. Tripling the national debt, imposing a $3,200 energy tax on every American family, and growing the size of government to unprecedented levels may sound like a joke, but sadly this budget would make that a reality.”

[droidamus2]

1. Isn't that special

Yeah right. So the Democrats are going to pass a Republican budget that ties their hands on discretionary spending for 5 years while allowing the Republicans to continue to funnel our tax money into the military/industrial complex. These people are so insane they actually believe their own crap about losing the last two elections because 'they were not conservative enough'. If they keep doing nothing but appealing to their ever shrinking base they will not be a minority party they will be a totally and absolutely irrelevant party. Wait...on second thought keep it up Republicans!!!

[babylonsister]

2. Yep, they never heard they should stop digging when the hole

is big enough. They're still digging, and I'm loving it!