Eugene Robinson:The GOP's Hooey to America

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/23/AR2010092304742.html

The Republicans were doing pretty well as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?

All right, I'm being slightly disingenuous. Inquiring minds demanded to know just what the GOP proposed to do if voters entrusted it with control of one or both houses of Congress. But if the "Pledge to America" unveiled Thursday is the best that House Republicans can come up with, they'd have been better off continuing to froth and foam about "creeping socialism" while stonewalling on specifics.

The problem with the pledge is that the numbers don't remotely add up. The document is such a jumble of contradictions that it's hard to imagine how it could possibly pass muster with anyone who survived eighth-grade arithmetic -- unless, perhaps, the Republicans have something in mind that they're not prepared to talk about quite yet.

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Perhaps the biggest is not just extending the tax cuts, but making them permanent. Over the next decade, this measure would add an estimated $4 trillion to the deficit. The Republicans' notion that cutting the federal budget will somehow make up the difference is laughable. The pledge exempts defense, entitlements and debt service -- the biggest components of the federal budget -- and focuses on "discretionary" spending, which Republicans would cut by "at least $100 billion in the first year alone." Yeah, right.

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One funny thing: The "Pledge to America" mentions the phrase "Social Security" just twice in passing. If the GOP were somehow to enact its full plan, one of the only conceivable ways to keep the country out of bankruptcy would be to make radical changes to Social Security -- perhaps privatizing the program, which George W. Bush tried and failed to accomplish. Is that what Republicans have in mind?

That would be a question to ask before November. I think more than a few people would love to know the answer.