GOP Challenges Dems

Sen. Judd Gregg says the EU wouldn't admit us because our debt level is so high. But actually, with the Obama porkulus and this budget, piling on and adding to initial bailouts, we're approaching third world status. Oh, yeah, they call them "emerging nations" now. Desmond Lachman, WaPo:

Negotiating with Argentina's top officials during their multiple financial crises in the 1990s was always an ordeal, and sparring with Domingo Cavallo, the country's Harvard-trained finance minister at the time, was particularly trying. One always had the sense that, despite their supreme arrogance, the country's leaders never had a coherent economic strategy and that major decisions were always made on the run. I never thought that was how policy was made in the United States -- until, that is, I saw how totally at sea Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Timothy F. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have appeared so many times during our country's ongoing economic and financial storm.

The parallels between U.S. policymaking and what we see in emerging markets are clearest in how we've mishandled the banking crisis.

More discussion of that, and then there's the debt:

A singular characteristic of an emerging market heading for deep trouble is a seemingly suicidal tendency to become overly indebted to foreign creditors.

We need to tighten our belts, and take measures that actually grow the economy. The GOP alternative:

Cantor challenged the idea that Republicans are acting when the horse is out of the barn, with the administration already implementing Obama’s plans. “First of all, the president knows different when he says that we don’t have a plan,” Cantor said. “And I think he would tell you, if he was being accurate, that from the first days of his administration, Leader Boehner and I went in and personally handed him our plan on the stimulus.”

Cantor called the Republican budget “a responsible attempt to restrain the growth in government, to return us back to a period of economic growth through tax relief and fiscal prudence.” The budget will also address entitlements, he added, saying it’s “in stark contrast to the smoke and mirrors inherent in the House Democrat plan.”

After Obama releases his detailed budget later this spring, House Republicans will do the same — matching his graphs with their graphs, his charts with their charts.

Video: