NBC Blog: Rep. Boehner's GOP Budget Turns into a PR Disaster

Republican House leader Rep. John Boehner went down in flames yesterday when he unveiled the House GOP's alternative budget plan.

Too bad it was an empty document, devoid of, well, anything resembling an actual budget with things like numbers in it.

Here's how the NBC blog First Read characterized Rep. Boehner's bad day:

Let’s be honest: Yesterday’s House Republican budget rollout was a P.R. disaster for the GOP. “Here it is, Mr. President” was the title of the GOP Leader blog touting that they had answered Obama’s dare to produce a budget. The problem -- their budget rollout didn’t contain any hard budget numbers or deficit projections. They say those hard numbers will come out next week.

But now we learn that Reps. Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan objected to unveiling yesterday’s “blueprint,” but were overruled by Reps. John Boehner and Mike Pence. But bigger than any internal disagreements or any criticism about a lack of details is the fact that yesterday’s GOP non-announcement moved the attention away from the Obama-vs.-congressional Democrat storyline to the GOP’s lack of a budget.

In fact, after yesterday, the White House and congressional Democrats can agree on one thing: The GOP -- at least until next week -- is the “Party of No.” What's more, it puts more pressure on Ryan to truly put out a comprehensive budget alternative.

Also, this episode could end up creating a rift in the GOP over how to combat the Obama White House. After all, Senate Republicans wanted nothing to do with an alternative, and now Mitch McConnell, et al are either laughing at their House GOP colleagues, furious at them, or both.