Republicans say RSC budget needed to save Medicare, Medicaid

Conservative Republicans on Friday encouraged their colleagues to support the Republican Study Committee (RSC) budget resolution for FY 2012, which would cut spending even more than the mainstream Republican proposal over the next decade and provide a solvency path for Medicare and Medicaid.

"The RSC budget … keeps tax rates low because we believe in economic growth, starts the process of saving Medicare and Social Security, protects national defense, which is after all is that area we are supposed to constitutionally spend taxpayer dollars," RSC Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said. "But most importantly, what the Republican Study Committee budget does is it balances."

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said the RSC budget would also give states more say over how Medicaid dollars are spent, which he said responds to voters' demands that states take power back from Washington.

"Block grants of federal Medicaid dollars to the states will do just that by allowing states, the people closest to the people, to use their ingenuity and creativity to make Medicaid dollars work more effectively," he said.

Democrats, as expected, rejected the RSC budget as even more drastic than the budget the House is expected to approve from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

"If the Republican budget is a doubling down on the policies that brought us to the brink … my brother from New Jersey presents a budget which I think quadruples down," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said in response to comments from Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.).

While Ryan's bill is expected to pass on Friday, several Republicans are expected to back the RSC proposal. GOP Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Mike Pence (Ind.) both said on the floor they would support the RSC budget, although Pence added that he also supports the Ryan budget.