House GOP passes budget plan

WASHINGTON -- In a prelude to a summer showdown with President Barack Obama, Republicans controlling the House pushed to passage on Friday a bold but politically dangerous budget blueprint to slash social safety net programs such as food stamps and Medicaid and fundamentally restructure Medicare .

The nonbinding plan lays out a fiscal vision cutting $6.2 trillion from yearly federal deficits over the coming decade and calls for transforming Medicare from a program in which the government directly pays medical bills into a voucher-like system that subsidizes purchases of private insurance plans.

The GOP budget passed 235-193 with every Democrat voting no . Obama said the measure would "make Medicare into a voucher program. That's something that we strongly object to."

The vote sets up the Republicans' next round of confrontation with Obama and Democrats over must-pass legislation to allow the government to borrow more money to finance its operations and obligations to holders of U.S. bonds.

Nevada's representatives split along party lines. Republican Reps. Dean Heller and Joe Heck voted for the GOP-written budget while Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley voted against it.

Berkley said GOP path will result in higher health care costs for the elderly, and cuts in health care for low-income families and the disabled, through an overhaul in Medicare and Medicaid.

"This budget makes the wrong choices for the people of Nevada," Berkley said. "We can work together to reduce spending and to address our deficit, but I will not stand by and watch as Republicans attempt to destroy Medicare and Medicaid and cut education and clean energy funding just so they can reward big oil and companies that send jobs abroad."

Heller said the budget was an attempt to stem the government's red ink.

"The federal government must stop spending money we don't have. Our national debt will serve as an anchor that drags down the economic opportunity of our children and grandchildren," he said.

"The choices are clear. We can continue with the status quo, which leads to bigger government, higher taxes, less jobs, and rationed health care for our seniors or we can decrease government spending, create jobs, and preserve Medicare for future generations while making no changes for current recipients."

The vote came on the same day Obama signed a hard-fought six-month spending bill that averted a government shutdown while cutting $38 billion from the government. Struck last week, the compromise was the first between the White House and the emboldened Republican majority in the House.

Under the GOP plan , deficits requiring the federal government to borrow more than 40 cents for every dollar it spends would be cut by the end of the decade to 8 cents of borrowing for every dollar spent.

"If the president won't lead, we will," House Speaker John Boehner said . "No more kicking the can down the road, no more whistling past the graveyard. Now is the time to address the serious challenges that face the American people and we will."

Obama saw the situation differently. He said the Republicans' "pessimistic vision ... says that America can no longer do some of the big things that made us great, that made us the envy of the world."

The plan exposes Republicans to political risk. Its Medicare proposal would give people now 54 or younger health insurance subsidies that would steadily lose value over time -- even as current beneficiaries and people 55 and older would stay in the current system.