The Republican Solution

Just the other night Obama dared his opponents to show him their budget plans. Well, here it comes:

House Republicans have begun unveiling detailed alternatives to President Barack Obama’s policies — a concerted effort to push back against Democratic efforts to label them “the Party of No.”

On Wednesday, it was a housing plan. Thursday, it will be a big, TV-friendly stack of budget blueprints, “The Republican Road to Recovery.” That’s to match the president’s own platitudinous budget title, “A New Era of Responsibility.”

The House Republicans’ budget document, provided to POLITICO ahead of its release, makes sure no one can miss the point: Each chapter begins “The Republican Plan,” and each section is divided into “The President’s Budget” and “Republicans’ Solution.”

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the housing proposal that he rolled out with eight other House Republicans on Tuesday was “in response to the administration — and the president himself, who continues to say that Republicans don’t have any ideas.”

“We’re here today to say yes we do,” Cantor said. “This is one in a series. It will not be the last. We are committed to trying to pull the agenda back to the mainstream and to respond to the problems facing America’s families today.”

The documents — and the showmanship in releasing them — are the result of frustration by GOP leaders who repeatedly hear on TV that they have no alternatives.

In fact, they had their own plans. They just didn’t get much attention, partly because Republicans sometimes disagreed about them among themselves.

So the entire House GOP elected leadership will join Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking member of the Budget Committee, for Thursday’s event. “It’s the old ‘I want to see it in writing,’” said a top House Republican official. “They’re going to see it in writing.”

Just as a sidenote, it's okay to be the "party of No" if you're saying no to the right things. And so far saying no to just about everything Obama has proposed has been the right thing to do.

Of course, the GOP does not have the votes to stop Obama or to pass their plans. However, we have congressional elections every two years and just as Newt Gingrich overturned Dem rule in both houses by creating a unified Republican alternative, so too is this the beginning of a unified Republican response. Given the increasing opposition to Obama's profligate spending and staggering increase in national debt, this could be the framework for a 2010 "Contract With America".

The press will mock, but the voters will listen.

Karl Rove also has some thoughts on how the old issues of deficits, spending and taxes are becoming major problems for the Obama Administration.