THE LATEST GOP BUDGET PROPOSAL: MORE BOGUS THAN THE RYAN PROPOSAL

 

Once again the Republicans show they know nothing about governing.

You may recall back when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was the House Budget Chairman.  In his bogus attempt at showing that the GOP could actually govern, Ryan proved to everyone that his GOP budget proposal was a real dud.

All Ryan’s budget proposal really did with all his charts and diagrams was to freeze the budget numbers to 2008 levels.  Other than that, there were statements to get rid of Obamacare, repeal Dodd-Frank, eliminate Fannie May and Freddie Mac, get rid of subsidies for middle class tax payers, privatize Medicare and Medicaid, cut college Pell Grants, cut the corporate tax rate to 25%, stop getting rid of Bush tax cuts, and stop developing Green energy programs.

The end result, if you believed his numbers, which have since been shown that his assumptions were off by about 50%, his proposed budget still would not have been balanced for another 10 years.

Well, the Republican House now has a new Budget Chair, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), and it is appearing that Rep. Price and his committee are an even worse choice than was Representative Ryan.

In starting off his presentation of “A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America”, his first comment was, “We do not rely on gimmicks or creative accounting tricks to balance our budget.”  This is also the first statement on the introduction page of the budget proposal.

Sorry, but they lie.

Of the questions they received from the DC reporters, one would have thought that the committee members would be better schooled in how to deal with such a press conference.

But as expected, they had no clue that the seasoned Washington House reporters would have actually reviewed the budget summaries before attending the press meeting.

When a reporter asked, “Can your budget pass?” Price immediately said, “I think so.”  Now there a solid positive attitude for a response!

When Jon Weisman of the New York Times asked Price if he would detail the $1 trillion in mandatory cuts that the budget doesn’t identify?  .Price replied, “Take a peek at ‘A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America.’ ”

“I’m looking at it,” Weisman said. “It doesn’t specify.”

Oops!

When Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), one of those on the stage with Price observed that “…our folks are playing with the opportunity for the first time in my short congressional career to actually bring a budget to the United States.”  Dana Milbank of the Washington Post later wrote that, “ ’Playing’ is a good verb for the occasion”.

As with the Ryan budget, here are some of the questionable assumptions and details in this latest fiasco budget proposal:

·       The budget says it will keep severe limits on the defense spending budget as required in the Sequester Bill that was passed in 2011.  However, there are tens of billions of extra dollars in a slush fund they call the “Overseas Contingency Operations fund.”   That fund counts as emergency Pentagon defense spending but is not part of the Pentagon budget.

·       The budget proposes to repeal Obamacare, while it still counts the revenues and savings from Obamacare, as if the repealed law would remained in effect.

·       It assumes that current tax cuts will be allowed to expire as scheduled.  This would amount to a $900 billion tax increase that nobody believes will be allowed to go into effect.

·       The budget relies on $147 billion in additional revenue from a far-off concept called, “dynamic scoring.”   This is a highly generous accounting method when compared to the traditional, tried and true methods.

·       Their budget doesn’t mention the $200 billion plan now being negotiated to increase doctor’s payments under Medicare, nor for extending the children’s health-care program.

·       It assumes more than $1 trillion in cuts in their category known as “other mandatory programs”.  But it doesn’t specify what or where those cuts would be made.

·       It claims a savings of $5.5 trillion over 10 years.  However, in reality the proposal only asks the committee to identify $5 billion in savings over that time.

This sure sounds a lot like “relying on gimmicks or creative accounting tricks” to me!!!!

Andy Taylor of the Associated Press asked Price about the $900 billion tax increase and the Obamacare revenues assumed in the budget.

“We believe in the American people, and we believe in growth,” replied Price, apparently predicting that higher-than-expected economic growth would boost tax revenues.  But noting was offered for supporting that prediction.

When are these yahoo’s going to understand that you can’t offer up a bogus plan such as this, if you are seriously expecting to govern the greatest nation in the world?

But based on this and the past Ryan budget, I guess some things never change.

Copyright G.Ater  2015