Today's Read: Republican "Comeuppance"

From Brian Beutler at TPM, the long-predicted Republican comeuppance has arrived, with a THUD:

Republicans have dealt with some embarrassing moments on the House floor over the past year, but none so revealing or damning as today’s [July 31] snafu, when they yanked a bill to fund the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development [THUD]. Even the recent farm bill fiasco wasn’t as significant an indictment of the GOP’s governing potential.

It might look like a minor hiccup, or a symbolic error. But it spells doom for the party’s near-term budget strategy and underscores just how bogus the party’s broader agenda really is and has been for the last four years.

As Beutler goes on to point out (please read the entire piece), once appropriations bills started rolling out and decisions had to be made about where the deep cuts would come from, the low-brow fakery that was/ is the "budget" produced by media-anointed numbers wonk Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch) has become clear for all sentient people to see.  The Rethuglican posturing about shrinking government through draconian budget cuts has finally hit the reality wall.

(P.S. -- The schadenfreude, it tingles!)

"Denial" Isn't Just A River In Egypt

Failed Vice Presidential candidate and Ayn Rand apostle Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan is claiming that the Dickensian 2014 budget he's proposing -- one that is nearly identical to the budget last year that was denounced by the conservative U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- is "what (the American people) want."  Well, we suppose if you're the Koch Brothers, Rump Trump or Smelly Sheldon Adelson and their tea bagger sheeple, it appeals to you;  everyone else, not so much.  For starters, it would slash Medicaid and Medicare spending and decimate aid to education, infrastructure, and research and development, those things that we need to grow the future economy.  Pure and simple, it's a "reverse Robin Hood" approach to priorities, one that would shovel enormous tax breaks to the very wealthy (i.e., Rethug contributors), while putting the burden of paying for Government on the backs of the working poor and middle class while cutting programs that they need (education grants, unemployment insurance, food stamps).

Lyin' has clearly forgotten who won the 2012 election with a mandate for a balanced approach to the budget, and which rejected the "makers and takers" worldview of Lyin' and his plutocrat running mate Lord Willard of Romney.

(image: Munster vs. monster)

A Budget That Billionaires Would Love

(click image to enlarge)

We've been referring to the 2014 budget proposal offered by tea bagger favorite Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan as a "reverse-Robin Hood" scheme.  Thanks to Steve Benen at the MaddowBlog, here's visual proof that the after-tax income of the very wealthiest Americans would see huge increases, while people in the bottom 80% would see very little.  One would think that trickle down economics had been completely discredited over the last 30 years, but one would be wrong, since Lyin's budget is treated in the Beltway bubble by Very Serious People as tough, but credible.

BONUS:  Josh Barro at Bloomberg tells us why it's "Paul Ryan vs. the Middle Class."

BONUS II:  Noam Scheiber tells us why the media may finally be onto Paul Ryan.

Lyin' Ryan On Truth Serum?

As we noted below, Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch) rolled out his Dickensian budget a couple of days ago, and has been spending his time since explaining why it's not a cruel, reverse Robin Hood plan that was rejected by the voters. In his press conference today, Lyin' inadvertently blurted out the truth behind his budget numbers as they relate to the Affordable Care Act:

"This to us is something that we're not going to give up on, because we're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people."

Heh heh heh. You can see the video of Lyin's moment of honesty here.

Uh, You Lost The Election, Remember?

Failed Vice Presidential candidate and tea bagger hero Rep. Paul "Lyin'" Ryan (R-Galt's Gulch), who chairs the House Budget Committee, released his budget for FY 2014 and it's merely a re-hash of all of the bad ideas that the voters rejected in the 2012 elections.   Lyin', who is oddly regarded by the Beltway media as a serious budget wonk, put together a budget that won't get a single Democratic vote in the Senate (and possibly not an overwhelming number of Rethug votes, considering how it treats Medicare).  The premise of his budget is to pile tax cuts on the wealthy and cut programs for the middle class and poor, while repealing the Affordable Care Act, something that Fux "News" Sunday's Chris Wallace said to Lyin's face, is "not going to happen."

So once again he's presented a partisan, ideological budget that will only pass the House by virtue of the tea bagger caucus pushing it,  with no bipartisan support or chance of passage in the Senate.  He's forgotten that he and Lord Mittens lost the election just  four months ago, an election which both sides said would represent a clear choice over our country's direction.  They made that choice, and Lyin' should respect it.