Don't worry, Gary -- they don't know what they're doing either

Today, Speaker Ron Richard and Budget Chair Allen Icet rolled out a brand new plan for how to use federal economic recovery money. Looking to quell a revolt in their own caucus, Richard and Icet just bagged all of their earlier ideas about how to use the money, with no deliberation or planning of any kind, and decided that tax cuts sounded good. Their  11th-hour plan surprised most everyone, including members of their own party -- not least of whom was Senate Budget Chair Gary Nodler. 

Richard and Icet might want to schedule a chat with Nodler, because he's a powerful dude in the Senate, and he has absolutely no idea what you're thinking.

Senate Budget Chairman Gary Nodler, a Joplin Republican, declined comment on the House’s new proposals, preferring to withhold judgment until the bills were through the House and ready for debate in the Senate.

Nodler said early Thursday he hadn’t been apprised of the House’s new game plan, and suggested communication between the chambers had been inadequate in recent weeks.

“If they have a radically different proposal, I guess we’ll need to find out about it some way,” he said. “It’d be good if they communicated.”

He added: “We’ve had no real, substantive conversations on the budget at all for weeks.”

Later in the day, Richard, the House Speaker, said Senate lawmakers “had a cow” when the tax-cut plan was described to them.

The regular demonstrations of incompetence and ineptitude from the Capitol's Republican leadersship are truly a sight to behold.