DSCC stays on offense over Ryan budget plan

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee plans to keep up its attacks on GOP Senate candidates on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) 2012 budget proposal.

The committee is blasting Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who's running for retiring Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) seat, for giving "bear hugs" to the plan.

After Ryan released his plan Tuesday, Democrats hammered the proposed budget. Party leaders said it amounts to a plan to eliminate Medicare, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called it a "path to poverty." 

The DSCC plans to hit Brown and Heller for offering praise for the Ryan plan, while again calling on Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) to take a position on the budget proposal.

The committee will also go after two of the GOP's most highly touted Senate recruits on the budget — Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Denny Rehberg (Mont.).

Rehberg told reporters Tuesday he hasn't yet had the opportunity to fully digest the Ryan plan and that he wouldn't react to it until he's had time to read it in full.

"Scott Brown, Dean Heller and other Republicans running for U.S. Senate will be forced to explain why they want to protect oil companies and hand more tax giveaways to the ultra rich, but do away with Medicare and slash funds for nursing homes," DSCC spokesman Matt Canter said in a statement. "Democrats are committed to fiscal discipline, but Republicans have the wrong priorities and it will cost them in 2012."

The DSCC's attacks are just part of a much larger Democratic offensive on Ryan's budget proposal, which shows no signs of relenting in the near future.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pointed to dozens of campaign ads run by Republican congressional candidates last cycle warning of cuts to Medicare, calling the GOP majority in the House hypocritical. On Wednesday, the DCCC continued the assault, calling the Ryan proposal "a partisan plan to end Medicare as we know it." 

The National Republican Congressional Committee fired back Wednesday, blasting releases into the districts of more than 50 House Democrats who panned the Ryan plan upon its release, calling on them to "start telling the truth about debt and borrowing."

"The consensus is clear that Nick Rahall's Democrat budget plan does absolutely nothing to avert our country's impending fiscal disaster," NRCC Communications Director Paul Lindsay said in one release targeting the West Virginia Democrat.

The Ryan plan would cut $5.8 trillion over 10 years and reform entitlement programs. The budget includes major reforms to Medicaid, which would become a block-grant program, and Medicare, which Democrats say would become a voucher system. 

The plan will be marked up Wednesday in committee and will likely head to the House floor for a vote next week.