House’s budget blueprint slashes benefit programs

get the budget measure through the House. Conservatives want a larger package of spending cuts to accompany this fall’s tax overhaul bill, while moderates are concerned cuts to programs such as food stamps could go too far.

“I just think that if you’re dealing with too many mandatory cuts while you’re dealing with tax reform you make tax reform that much harder to enact,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa.

Black announced a committee vote for Wednesday, but was less confident of a vote by the entire House next week; a delay seems likely because of the ongoing quarrel between the GOP’s factions.

The House GOP plan proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program in which future retirees would receive a fixed benefit to purchase health insurance on the open market. Republicans have proposed the idea each year since taking back the House in 2011, but they’ve never tried to implement it — and that’s not going to change now, even with a Republican as president.

“Republicans would destroy the Medicare guarantee for our seniors and inflict bone-deep cuts to Medicaid that would devastate veterans, seniors with long-term care needs, and rural communities,” said Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

The plan calls for turning this year’s projected $700 billion-or-so deficit into a $9 billion surplus by 2027. It would do so by slashing $5.4 trillion over the coming decade, including almost $500 billion from Medicare and $1.5 trillion from Medicaid and the Obama health law, along with sweeping cuts to benefits such as federal employee pensions, food stamps and tax credits for the working poor.

It would add almost $30 billion to Trump’s $668 billion request for national defense. The GOP budget plan would cut non-defense agencies by $5 billion. And of the more than $4 trillion in promised savings from mandatory programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the plan assumes just $203 billion would actually pass this year.

Democrats focused their fire on the plan’s sweeping promises to cut from almost every corner of the budget other than Social Security, defense and veterans programs.

The budget resolution is nonbinding.

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP GOP Rep. Diane Black, chair of the House Budget Committee, says “now is our moment to achieve real results.”