This afternoon, GOP House leadership called a press conference to roll-out their alternative budget. The cable news greatly hyped the event in advance. But like so much of the Republican rhetoric we get these days, it’s nothing but hot air.

There was no budget. No numbers. No data. No projections. No specifics. Nothing but a slick 18-page booklet of their old talking points — massive tax cuts for the wealthy, unspecific entitlement cuts, and no more bailouts. That was about it. 

Here are some comments on today’s event.

First Read:

Yesterday, House Republicans made a pretty big deal about unveiling their budget alternative.

In fact, we received this email from a House GOP spokewoman, "Given the President’s comments [Tuesday] night that, ‘we haven’t seen a budget out of [Republicans],’ we wanted to make sure to make you all aware that we are introducing our Republican Budget Alternative tomorrow."

And then what happens today? House Republicans release a 19-page document that contains no hard spending numbers or deficit projections. Per the AP, "One of the few hard bits of information is a promise to simplify the tax code and cut income tax rates to 10 percent for people making $100,000 or less down. They also promise to cut domestic spending below current levels but don’t say whether they are exempting Social Security. It’s impossible to determine the projected deficit based on their offering."

…Not surprisingly, the Democratic National Committee pounced on the GOP’s budget — or lack thereof. "After 27 days, the best House Republicans could come up with is a 19-page pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate," said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

The Washington Monthly:

House GOP leaders held a press conference this morning to prove a) they could put together a budget; b) that they could be the "party of yes"; and c) that their agenda is about more than just saying the opposite of whatever President Obama wants.

Instead, they unveiled a "budget" with no numbers or even budget estimates, and spent most of the press conference criticizing the president.

Republican leaders posted their "Road to Recovery" report online, and it’s more or less a joke. Apparently — I hope you’re sitting down — the minority party believes the nation will thrive if we cut taxes, stick with Bush’s energy policies, and pursue more deregulation. How much would this cost? They don’t say. How would this affect the deficit? They don’t say.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs:

After several days of challenging Republicans to propose an alternative budget, the White House on Thursday scoffed at what House Republicans put forward earlier in the day.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs ridiculed the GOP proposal for being brief and containing a "picture of a windmill" instead of numbers.

"It took me several minutes to read it," Gibbs joked.

Gibbs said the president is "absolutely" disappointed the Republicans’ counter-proposal doesn’t contain more detail.

"I think the ‘party of no’ has become the party of no new ideas," Gibbs said.

Gibbs added that "we just hope that next time it will contain actual numbers so somebody can evaluate what it means."

MSNBC:

Contessa Brewer: Mike Viqueira joins me now. I am very frustrated Mike because we’ve been waiting for this, we cut away from the President to hear the big build up: Republican have a plan, they have ideas, they’re not the Party of No. And, all I heard in that news conference is what they don’t like about the President’s plan.
 
Mike Viqueira: Well Norah – Uh Contessa, not Norah, Contessa, I am going to pass that along. They did hold up this uh John Boehner hold up this budget book here and said now we have a plan here is our budget. What it is is, it is a plan in the broad sense of the term. It outlines what the President wants to do in the various policies areas like energy and healthcare  and entitlement reform and things of that nature and it talks about what Republicans want to do in very broad terms.  It does not have, in the sense of a traditional budget, numbers with estimates, an estimate for how much they would reduce the deficit things of that nature.

Incredible.