I figured you had to be exaggerating. You weren't. That looks like something they wrote it on a cocktail napkin over happy hour. It reminds me of the Underwear Gnomes on South Park.
Step one steal underpants
Step two ?
Step three tax cuts
Step four Profit!

I am indeed having something of a bad day, but the budget molecule made me smile. Cheers, Ezra

They say that Democrats propose "nearly $1 trillion" in health care spending as a downpayment" on reform. The actual number is $634 billion, which someone who's more familiar with, you know, numbers, might have characterized as "more than $600 billion," or, alternately, "$634 billion."

Whereas someone who's more familiar with, you know, politics, government, or American history might have characterized as "more than $1 trillion," or, alternatively, "$3 trillion."

I suddenly flashed on high school chemistry with ionic and covalent bonds. That could totally be H2O (though the H's would have to be smaller) or CO2.

Trouble is, as easy as this budget proposal is to mock, the Dems are gonna play defense not offense. Worse, Evan Bayh and crew are going to try engage this with this trash.

How much longer are we going to have to put up with this abusive relationship with the GOP? In real life the abused spouse has to acknowledge the abuse and that there are avenues for help ...

Thanks Ezra for taking me from 10th grade science to domestic violence all within a single comment.

I have no idea what that graphic is supposed to mean. It's like a computer program randomly selected Republican talking points, arranged them randomly, and then added circles and lines to make it look cool.

So the "Republican Road to Recovery" is a landing strip that cuts across a footpath between "Universal Access to Affordable Coverage" and "Limits Federal Spending"?

And isn't "Recovery" supposed to be at one end of the road? Otherwise, it's not really the road to recovery.

My editor Ann Friedman
So that is why you wanted to call Feministing.com a "political" blog instead of a "feminist" blog.
http://volokh.com/posts/1208474744.shtml

Love the graphs at the bottom of pages 5 and 7. "Hey guys, we're about to promulgate a major policy document, can you lower the quality for the source jpgs to minimum so it looks like we scanned images we printed from someone's web page?" Seriously, they look out of focus. I get eye strain just looking at them. Did no one wonder if it looked unprofessional?

We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling twirling towards freedom!

This is, I think, your best post ever -- and I've been reading you for over two years now.

The last line -- not the leadup, but just the dismissive snark -- means most of my desk is covered in a thin patina of chocolate milk.

Whereas someone who's more familiar with, you know, politics, government, or American history might have characterized as "more than $1 trillion," or, alternatively, "$3 trillion."

David -- I think you're confusing spending with revenues/additional resources. The $634 billion comes from cuts to federal programs and changes to the tax code. Indeed, to the extent that health care spending often exceeds projections, you'd expect the savings from the Medicare cuts to be even higher.

Separately, no one argues that the eventual price tag for reform over ten years will be over $1 trillion. But the Republican formulation here makes as much sense as saying that because you made a $2,000 down payment on a $30,000 car, you just made a $30,000 down payment. Huh?

I'd like to echo the thanks expressed by others. This post, along with the Rand/Tolkien one, have greatly brightened what was turning into a not good day.

Wow. Yeah, I agree with the first commenter. When I saw this alternate "budget" (here, scare quotes seem appropriate) discussed in other blog posts today, I assumed the blogger was exagerrating when they were as dismissive as Ezra is here. Even if the Republicans' proposal was 10 pages of dense legalese, that would be sparse and mockable if it was meant to describe an entire federal budget. But judging by the health reform flowchart... the Republican plan really does look like a joke.

Also, Paul L., who is the Congressman you call Mccommie? I don't mean any offense or anything; I'm just trying to figure out who you were talking about in that Balloon Juice thread a few days ago.

What's amazing is that this effort is coming from the guys who two short years ago were running the House.

I could excuse this pathetic effort from them in 1990. I mean, at that point they hadn't run the house since 1952.

But for the love of god, these guys were in charge for 12 years! They're not some opposition party that recently sprang up. Boehner was the majority leader! Cantor was the deputy whip! They should be able to construct an alternative budget in their sleep! Yet we get this...drivel.

It's scary how utterly vapid the modern Republican party is. This is not good for democracy.

What's amazing is that this effort is coming from the guys who two short years ago were running the House.

I could excuse this pathetic effort from them in 1990. I mean, at that point they hadn't run the house since 1952.

But for the love of god, these guys were in charge for 12 years! They're not some opposition party that recently sprang up. Boehner was the majority leader! Cantor was the deputy whip! They should be able to construct an alternative budget in their sleep! Yet we get this...drivel.

It's scary how utterly vapid the modern Republican party is. This is not good for democracy.

It's very important you all read that twice.

Sorry.

From the wacky Republican "budget": And the Obama budget reinstates the death tax
scheduled to be fully repealed in 2010. And scheduled to bounce back to 55% in 2011. A Republican president and congress gave us that.

This is some prime snark. I actually laughed. One absurdity piled on another.

Your editor wins the Internet for today with her "budget molecule" comment.

It's not fair to criticize the text version. Like everything Republican, it works better in Powerpoint.

Holy crap. Thanks, Ezra: now my co-workers think I'm insane.

It was the twirling bit.

I stopped reading when they referred to the Obama budget as the "Democrat budget" right on Page 1. I knew incorrect grammar was part of hard right talking points, but in a WRITTEN document presented by the leadership? They are like toddlers with this bullshit. I WANT them to come up with a reasonable alternative -- it's not good for democracy to have one party acting so silly.

The twirling bit was shamelessly stolen from Shawn, who shamelessly stole it from the Simpsons. Credit where its due!

And the Obama budget reinstates the death tax
scheduled to be fully repealed in 2010

This is a good thing. From smoking to drinking to gambling, we tax things we want to discourage.

Who's in favor of more death? I know I'm not. If the GOP were actually the party of life, they'd raise death taxes dramatically.

"Republicans will be on the side of quality versus mediocrity, affordability versus unsustainable debt, and freedom of care versus bureaucrats in control.

I'll definitely try to keep a straight face when I say that to the smarmy insurance rep that kicks me out of the hospital three days early.

The threat going around the Capitol is that some impish Democratic chairman will ask the CBO to try and score the Republican proposal.

You mean, write some music to accompany it? That's a great idea! Too bad Spike Jones isn't still around...

I like this guy's take: DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan: "I'm all for changing the way we do business in Washington, but proposing a 'budget' that doesn't use numbers may be too much for me. 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. There are more numbers in my last sentence than there are in the entire House GOP 'budget.'"

Oh and if you have 750 employees make sure you fire 250 to get a 20% tax brake.

Oh and getting rid of capitol gains taxes is the right thing to do because in these "uncertain times" people should save more... because thats what capitol gains taxes are all about, a couple of people saving some money.

Ezra myth: "There are no numbers"
FACT: It has numbers on the pages 2 ,3 ,4 ,5 ,6, 7, 8 , 9 , 10 , 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 *and* page 18... in fact, those are the numbers!

Ezra myth: The Republican budget proposal does not say how much money they would raise, or spend.
FACT: TMPdc writes: When Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was asked what his goal for deficit reduction would be -- President Obama aims to halve the nation's spending imbalance within five years -- Boehner responded simply: "To do better [than Obama]."

Ezra myth: "the GOP does understand that some voters might be looking for specificity"
FACT: The budget has a "chapter" entitled "The republican plan creates jobs and lowers taxes"... which explain in some detail some taxes that should be lowered and... something about energy and drilling the OCS. Nothing about jobs really.

And thats intentional because Republicans just promise jobs and then just do it booyeah specifics are for sissypants!

It will be interesting to see how healthcare will benefit by permitting out-of-state insurance purchases. How will the individual State Insurance Commissioners react? And how likely will someone who lives in Chicago want to go to a doctor and hospital in the less expensive Cleveland Ohio based policy purchased?

"Republicans also support breaking down the balkanized
barriers within our current health insurance industry,
allowing individuals to shop across state lines to purchase
affordable policies that best meet their needs.
Independent estimates suggest that as many as 12 million
individuals could obtain access to health insurance"

Your paraphrase of a great quote from Citizen Kang (Treehouse of Horror VII--everybody should see this) makes this perhaps your best post ever.

wait 'til they hear about pie charts! What comes next? Budget quarks!

I am SOOOO relieved that we are supporting Hobbits and not Orcs. The GOP is totally not getting what the American public wants. I haven't run into so many tone-deaf people since the last time I was in a karaoke bar, and there was alcohol involved that time.

They're going for the Sarah Palin approach to concepts:

http://www.slate.com/id/2201158/

The "molecule" chart seems perfectly comprehensible to me. One starts at the bottom and reads upwards. Like all true Republicans, you start with the commandment "Limit Government Spending." Then you move upward, and the 'Republican Road To Recovery' plan serves as an impenetrable roadblock that keeps the country from getting to Universal Access to Affordable Coverage, or beyond that, to Reforms to Medicare and Medicaid.

It's perfectly clear.

this chart is actually very clear and very well done.

As you can see, the Republican Road to Recovery (which is a dead end in either direction), will be constructed to create an unbridgeable division between "limiting federal spending" and "universal access to affordable coverage", while completely bypassing (or ignoring) medicare and medicaid reforms.

This is actually its selling point.

I wonder who decided that the word "literally" added something to the following sentence (page 7):

Consider 12-year-old
Deamonte Driver who literally died in 2007 from a tooth
infection

After downloading and reading through the "Republican Road to Recovery" alternative budget proposal, I was struck by two things:

1. I did a search for dollar signs in the document and got 31 hits. 30 were associated with an Obama budget/deficit/debt figure, and served one purpose - to criticize the "other guys' plan". The one remaining $ was associated with an actual Republican proposal. Based on this sad fact, the document should, more aptly, be called:

"The Republican Road to Recovery: Democrats Provide the Dollars and We Provide the Nonsense"

2.For some reason I am reminded of the Simpson's episode where Homer becomes Garbage Commissioner.

Budget FAIL. It's not even balanced.

Absurd document. I won't defend the content, but the poor image quality mentioned by Ian is a necessary evil, and shouldn't reflect upon the GOP's professionalism. Thousands of people are downloading this file every second, at least for the next week or so. If the file were too big, their servers wouldn't be able to keep up. When the new Whitehouse.gov design under Obama was unveiled, it had similarly shoddy images. It looks terrible, but the alternative is the site crashing, which looks even worse. The technology is the culprit, not the political party.

I suddenly flashed on high school chemistry with ionic and covalent bonds. That could totally be H2O (though the H's would have to be smaller) or CO2.

Remember that this is from the Republicans. It's more likely to be HCN.

When is the GOP going to release a "board-book" version, with lots of pretty pictures?

Sounds like it'd be only a minor edit. And it certainly would suit the intellectual level of the remaining GOPers.

Jeez, Ezra, why might you be having a bad day?

Reminds me of the "plan" for becoming a millionaire (from a Republican acquaintance):

"Step one, find a woman with a million dollars; step two, marry her."

Kudos not only to Ezra, but to the comments section as well...no trolls even. I chortled, giggled, snickered and smiled all the way through. Thanks everyone. All those doors I knocked on for Obama, never thought it would ultimately be this much fun!

Pee Cee--

HCN has a linear structure, not bent.

Ezra--

very funny article. never read you before, but maybe ill start.

tho that ridiculous email chain kaus just posted is making me ambivalent.

Republicans are so focused on the wealthy, takes this from page 7 of their plan under Health Insurance: "Republicans do not believe that a health care program
which wealthy individuals would not “like to go on” is
acceptable for 60 million poor and vulnerable Americans."

They go on to promote tax cuts and setting up health care across state lines (which is just another scam of a system--I may be "fully covered" but to get my coverage I may have to travel to Texas from Michigan--moronic).

Also, the tax cuts are not fully discussed. Cutting taxes to 10% for people making under $100K is that a tax cut?

I make under that and according to TurboTax, I pay approximately 8% in federal taxes. So, is their proposal a tax cut or tax increase for me?

I suspect it is a tax increase for me and cut for the rich.

Pee Cee--
HCN has a linear structure, not bent.

Exactly. But when have you ever known Republicans to get the science right?

If we'd like to give them a bent molecule, though, perhaps this should be considered the H2S budget?

Yes, their "budget" made me laugh out loud a few times yesterday. When you read it there are some real howlers in that document.

My personal fave? Oil shale as an alternative and renewable energy source. I know now that they don't understand the meaning of those two words.

I am sorry to break this to everyone, but there are some numbers. Not just page numbers, and not as part of a criticism of the Democratic budget proposal. There are numbers in the only "Republicans' Solution" section which is longer than the corresponding "problem statement": it is, of course, the section on taxes.

The only quantified proposals in the document are tax cuts. Not that they say how the Fed's revenue would change. Oh, no. But once again, the only Republican party solution to any problem is to cut taxes.

The GOP has spent the last four decades sucking up to ignorant redneck southern authoritarian Christian-supremacists. Now they're the only effective force left in the party. Of course this an incredibly ignorant document. What else did they expect to happen when the party has taken great pains to drive everyone with a brain out of the Party?

Well, the GOP "plan" may certainly be lacking in numbers and specificity, but it is sad to say that their proposed budget is still far superior to a budget that bankrupts future generations as the current Democratic budget proposal does... a truly pitiful commentary on both parties.

I would just like to comment that it is not a budget, it does not say it is a budget - the only one using the word budget is your link to the document. It calls itself an economic plan, but reads more like a response to the Administrations budget proposal. It's a high level, marketing/positioning piece. The graphics are awful, and I do agree it contains a lot of "we're for everything good, they're for everything bad" verbage. It states what I and other Republicans support but sadly it offers no specific plan of action or concrete solutions, so I don't see it as much of an economic plan.

I would like to add my voice to those praising South Park for giving us the concept of the Underpants Gnomes, without which so much of current situation would lack a coherent and cogent explanation.

Absolutely hilarious. Spot. On.

I, too, have made a mess of my work area while reading.

OMG, the "and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom." almost made me lose it completely. This is insane. The GOP amazes me more and more every day now.

"Republican Road to Recovery." One can't help wondering if it's their OWN recovery they're talking about -- from delusions of grandeur!

Your editor is wrong. That's clearly a budget Feynman diagram.

Ezra is spot on; it supports everything good and opposes everything bad. Just my kind of budget. I don't like to see those scarey numbers either, and this budget exceeded my expectations in that respect.

It's worth a read; it only took me 15 minutes. Then I filed my downloaded copy in the same "fantasyland" folder with the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq", circa Nov 2005. It had the same attractive looking cover page, indicating something really important can be found inside.

Well, the GOP "plan" may certainly be lacking in numbers and specificity, but it is sad to say that their proposed budget is still far superior to a budget that bankrupts future generations as the current Democratic budget proposal does... a truly pitiful commentary on both parties.

There's a reason why "butter bars" are like small children... should be seen and not heard.

For the obviously uninitiated, we had a Democrat in office from 1992 - 2000 and during that time, the same disingenuous RepubliCANT's said that deficit spending would lead to ruin. Less we forget, the Democrats actually *lowered* the deficit and had budget *surpluses*. Look, no one in enamored with spending as much money as being suggested. But in case you didn't notice, there's a recession going on and people are out of work. Perhaps you don't see that because you're living in base housing collecting a pay check... oh yes, from my taxes.

My absolute favorite bit was them calling oil shale "alternative energy".

It's oil, except dirtier! How is that "alternative?"

I'm almost sad. What happened to the demonic Republicans of the turn of the millennium? The ones with the Great Wurlitzer and the armies of Brooks Brother stooges and the maybe stolen elections? The ones who ground the newsrooms of the world beneath their sandaled heels in 2002?

It's not even fun anymore. These guys are just sad.

I like how Title X Family Planning (price tag for 2007: $283 million is one of those wasteful recipients of government largesse. That's like one day of the war in Iraq, for an entire year of family planning.

"a truly pitiful commentary on both parties."

Actually, it's really a "pitiful commentary" on your lack of economic understanding. Come back when you've done your homework.

No, the republicans would not have been for the Hobbits, they would hope for the Hobbit quest to fail and defend their support for the Orcs.

I'm with the butterbar, he obviously pays attention to his NCOs.

If I remember right when Clinton left office he did leave with a current year surplus and congress was controlled by Republicans. When one of the two major parties has the keys to the powder magazine (congress) and the detonator magazine (presidency) we are in trouble.

Give me gridlock any time.

That graphic made me laugh...and then I got really concerned. These are the people vying to run the country right? Scary actually.

When one of the two major parties has the keys to the powder magazine (congress) and the detonator magazine (presidency) we are in trouble.

I know which one you must mean, and that's exactly why the rest of us overwhelmingly voted the other major party into control -- to pull our country out of the ditch the first one drove us into.

Give me gridlock any time.

Luckily for the rest of us, gridlock supporters have a really hard time organizing any kind of coordinated effort promoting gridlock.

bethk; I think people are calling it a budget because it was offered as a direct rebuttal to Obama's claim that the GOP was criticising his budget but not offering one of their own ("well, it's just not true, because here it is Mr. President."), its URL is under "http://www.gop.gov/solutions/budget/", and due to phrases in the document like "The Republican budget ends this failed bailout strategy by refusing to assume additional spending for bailouts." on page 19.

The Repugnants budget is like a dog chasing its tail.

While this is pretty funny, it's worth noting that the Republicans DO have a proposed budget here (PDF, 1mb). It has numbers and stuff, as well.

It's no molecule: it's a Feinman diagram! They've clearly gone quantum on us!

Bush's deficit, first 7 years: $500 billion, on average.

Bush's deficit, last year: 1.2 trillion ($500B + bailout bill)

Obama's first budget deficit: 1.7 trillion.

Does this concern anyone? Can the repubs really be criticized compared to the dems? If the dems were the better fiscal party, the deficit would be going DOWN, not UP.

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