House Passes GOP Budget, Senate Strikes it Down
By: Fox News
Updated: March 22, 2013
The Republican-controlled House passed a tea party-flavored budget plan Thursday that promises sharp cuts in safety-net programs for the poor and a clampdown on domestic agencies, in sharp contrast to less austere plans favored by President Obama and his Democratic allies.
The Senate, however, easily defeated the house plan later Thursday night, in a 59-40 vote.
The measure, similar to previous plans offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., demonstrates that it's possible, at least mathematically, to balance the budget within a decade without raising taxes.
But its deep cuts to programs for the poor like Medicaid and food stamps and its promise to abolish so-called "Obamacare" are nonstarters with the president, who won re-election while campaigning against Ryan's prior budgets. It passed on a mostly party-line 221-207 vote.
The House measure advanced as the Democratic Senate debated its first budget since the 2009 plan that helped Obama pass his health care law.
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