Conservatives Unveil Rival Budget

The Hill reports:

The House Republican Study Committee on Thursday released an alternative to the 2012 budget resolution from Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that would cut $9.1 trillion over the next decade.

The RSC, a 176-member caucus, will offer the plan, entitled “Honest Solutions,” as a floor amendment to the budget resolution next week. The GOP budget plan was passed by the House Budget Committee late Wednesday.

Like a failed RSC effort to cut $40 billion more from 2011 spending in February, the amendment is expected to fail, but it sends a strong signal to GOP leadership and to Democrats that there's backing for going even farther than Ryan's plan on spending cuts.

Whereas Ryan's plan would balance the federal budget by 2040, the RSC plan would do so by 2020.

It does so by cutting $3.3 trillion more over 10 years than the Ryan plan. The Ryan budget resolution cuts $5.8 trillion over the next decade, while the RSC plan would cut $9.1 trillion.

“The Path to Prosperity put forward by the House Budget Committee takes an honest look at the challenges ahead and, if implemented, would give Americans a better future than the one toward which the country is currently headed. Toward that end, the RSC proposes this budget that builds off the Budget Committee’s effort and balances the budget by 2020,” the plan states.

One trillion dollars in additional cuts would come from discretionary accounts such as agency budgets, and another $1.2 trillion would be slashed from Medicare. Another $700 billion would be cut from Medicaid.