GOP takes aim at Democrats' spending

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans redoubled their efforts to roll back signature accomplishments of President Barack Obama yesterday, offering a slashing budget plan that would repeal new health care subsidies and cut spending across a wide swath of programs dear to Obama and his Democratic allies.

The GOP plan was immediately rejected by the White House as an approach that "just doesn't add up" and would harm the middle class. Obama has rebuffed similar plans two years in a row and ran strongly against the ideas in winning re-election -- when its chief author, Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was on the Republican ticket.

Ryan's budget illustrates the differences in the visions of tea-party-backed Republicans and Obama and his Democratic allies about the size and role of government.

Senate Democrats are responding with a milder plan that would repeal automatic spending cuts that began to take effect earlier this month while offering $100 billion in new spending for infrastructure and job training. The Democratic counter won't be unveiled until today, but its rough outlines were described by aides. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to describe it publicly.

That plan by Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would raise taxes by almost $1 trillion over a decade and cut spending by almost $1 trillion over the same period. But more than half of the combined deficit savings would be used to repeal the automatic cuts that hit the economy earlier this month and are slated to continue through the decade.

This year's dueling GOP and Democratic budget proposals are more about defining political differences than charting a path toward a solution.

"If you look at the two budgets, there's not a lot of overlap," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, top Democrat on the Budget Committee. He said the lack of "common ground" makes it necessary to make uncomfortable compromises.

Driving the House GOP plan is a promise to pass a budget that would balance the government's books, which the measure would achieve by cutting $756 billion over 10 years from the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled, cutting deeply into the day-to-day budgets of domestic agencies and repealing new health coverage subsidies enacted two years ago with Obama's signature health care bill.