Tomorrow's National Joke (or) Cat Stuck in a Tree Once More

It Would Be Funny, If It Weren’t So Pathetic:

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Republicans will release an alternate budget proposal to the Nation.

And Tomorrow, April 1st, as Every American Schoolboy Knows, Is:

April Fool's Day!

These Are Serious Times in America. Millions of Americans find themselves and their families in straitened circumstance.

And Yet the Republicans Keep Working to give us the laughs. Such as last week's Republican budget-that-wasn't-a-budget.....disputed by another Republican, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin....who will release another Republican budget—that may or may not turn out to be an actual budget. Tomorrow.

Sadly, Republican Humor Is No More Successful than its economic ideology and its empirically flawed ideas.

And We Have No Evidence Even that these humorous episodes are deliberate.

One Can Hardly Help Feeling Sorry for these illegitimate scions of America’s long-dead political past—

But Then, That Is in the Nature of Liberal-Minded Americans: to feel sorry for others, regardless of how much they are responsible for their folly.

A Republican/Cat Analogy

In the Hearts of Mainstream Americans, the Republican Party is like the cat caught up too high in a tree:

• The cat’s independence gets it into these messes.
• The cat’s intransigence makes it refuse assistance, from even the most-public-minded firemen rescue team.
• And yet society in general has to expend the time and the money to send out the firemen, and put up the ladder, and try to rescue that darn cat.

The Cat’s Little Secret—which every good Conservative Republican knows—is that she can either be rescued or left alone.

Either Way, That Cat Is Going to Land on its Feet, back down on the ground.

The Cat’s Mews That We Hear—from former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson pleading for the rescue of the banking “cats” on Wall Street....

....to the auto-industry “cats” in Detroit....

....and from Congressman John Boehner announcing an alternate budget proposal that isn't a budget....

....to Congressman Paul Ryan insisting that the announced budget proposal is not the real budget proposal....

—Don't Mean Anything in terms of the health and welfare of the cats.

These Republican Fat Cats Are Going to Land Just Fine.

It’s All of the Rest of America—the fire-truck mechanics who repair the trucks, and the workers who build the fire-trucks, and the firemen themselves—who could stand to be rescued.

So Here It Is, Our Best Hope: that we leave those Republican “cats” up in the trees where they’ve climbed. We can leave them meowing away as loud and as whiny as former Republican Congressman Phil Gramm once said that Americans are....


It’s Time We Just Forgot about These Republicans—alternate budgets and whining about bailouts and laments of “Terror” and all. Let’s turn our attention to the urgent business of rebuilding the American economy and restoring order in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But First, Let's Take One Last, Good Look at the Republicans and their alternate budget proposal. Coming tomorrow:

April Fools!

The Constant Carping of the Conservatives (Part 2)

When Is a Budget Not a Budget?

Earlier This Week, the Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner of Ohio, released an eighteen-page pamphlet which he presented as an alternative budget. The presentation was a sad spectacle. It was presented as an argument against President Barack Obama’s assertion that the Republicans had not presented an alternative budget. But the “budget” that Congressman Boehner flashed to the media was only 18 pages long—and lacked figures.

Then, Later, Wisconsin Republican Representative Paul Ryan Stepped Forward to report,

“There was some confusion as to what was released on Thursday; that was not our alternative budget.”

According to Congressman Ryan, Congressman Boehner’s pamphlet presented:

“a broader Republican economic agenda.”

But Here’s What Congressman Boehner Actually Said:

“Two nights ago, the President said, ‘We haven’t seen a budget yet out of Republicans. Well, it’s not true, because.....here it is, Mr. President.”

Constant Reader, See and Hear the Video for Yourself:
Republican Budget Proposal

So Which Republican Leader (If Any) Is Telling the Truth?

Listening to Both Republican Gentlemen, it’s hard to tell.

• Was there a Republican budget at the time that President Obama said that there wasn't one?
• Was Congressman Boehner's pamphlet without numbers actually a budget?
• Was Congressman Boehner's budget actually the Republican alternative budget?
• Is Congressman Ryan really the Republican Representative who is going to present the Republican alternate budget next week?
  

If One Did Not Know Better, one might think that these Republicans are just “playing politics” with the American people—at a time when many Americans have more-urgent things to do then to decipher what the Republicans mean right now, what they stand for besides the familiar “lower the taxes” and “cut Democratic spending.”

Republicans Don’t Usually Seem to Have Anything Better to Do these days than to play politics. Going back to Congressman Phil Gramm, who lobbied to destroy the Glass-Steagall Act and then called America, “a nation of whiners,” these folks clearly don’t get it.

With All Due Respect, the Republicans just don’t get it.

How Liberals and Conservatives Serve America Best

Here's Our Prescription for America's Best Political Future:

Let American Liberals—the Democrats—Drive the Dream Forward, as they always have. But there is still a role for Conservatives in American government.

America Can Use the “Constant Carping of the Conservatives” to remind us not to spend too much. Not to tax too much. Not to make a government too large. No government that interferes too much in the personal and economic lives of it citizens.

Conservative Opinion Notwithstanding, Our Representative Government Has a legitimate role overall: to do those things necessary, which we cannot do individually. Such as coordinating the overall health and welfare of the nation–from roads and defense to accountable financial institutions and health care.

When Should Government Save and When Should Government Spend?

When the People Cannot Afford to Save, then government should curtail its spending and do the saving on our behalf.

When the People Cannot Risk Spending on infrastructure and new jobs, then government should expand its infrastructure programs. As President Obama said in Tuesday night’s press conference–and as we wrote here previously–necessary infrastructure of the future, built today, borrows expenses from the future. Which expenses borrowed now will contribute in the future to re-balancing the budget. And to restoring a healthy economy.

And the Value of a Balanced Budget and a Healthy Economy are a combination that all Americans can agree on.