The Democratic National Committee released a “Party of No” clock today that tallies how much time Republicans have spent criticizing President Obama’s budget without offering an alternative of their own.
And it’s a good thing that there’s no limit on how high the clock can go, because Senate GOPers have no intention of ever offering an alternative budget this year. As senior Budget Committee Republican Judd Gregg (NH) tells the Times:
The responsibility of the majority is to produce the budget, and we think it is more constructive to point out how we would improve their budget.
Good plan! Seriously, though, the senators’ task may be complicated by their House GOP counterparts, who — to their credit — are planning to unveil an alternative budget proposal.
This all may sound like political back-and-forth, but alternative plans put forward by the minority party often get an actual vote; Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) alterna-stimulus, for example, won the support of all but four Republican senators last month.
It’s too bad that Senate Republicans aren’t prepared to come together on a budget they can believe in … but perhaps a Democratic senator would be kind enough to submit the House GOP’s alterna-budget to a vote in the upper chamber? I’d love to see how many on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) team would be willing to vote for it.
