Ryan's budget will be on the floor this week, and leadership is confident it will pass. New GOP idea: Balanced budgets

When Rep. Paul Ryan first introduced his new budget plan, Democrats dismissed it as draconian for balancing the budget in 10 years.

But the message of bringing the federal government’s books into balance — the central idea behind the Wisconsin lawmaker’s 2014 spending plan — was quietly tested in 18 competitive House races in a late-February poll by the National Republican Congressional Committee. It was a winning argument across a broad swath of politically moderate — and nearly split — districts.


The poll developed House Republicans’ driving political message as they head into a highly charged budget debate. Ryan’s budget — in the past used as a weapon against Republicans in House races — will be on the floor this week, and leadership is confident it will pass.

(Also on POLITICO: Shutdown, budget bills on floor this week)

Instead of focusing on selling the conversion of Medicare into a premium support program, Republicans will incessantly pound home the theme of balancing the budget, GOP leaders say. When talking about the Democrats’ plan, Republicans criticize it for attempting to raise taxes and the fact that it doesn’t balance the budget. Republicans say they’re trying to seize the message “balanced” back from President Barack Obama, who said last week he doesn’t consider balancing the budget a top priority.

The internal party polling shows that Republicans think there’s massive political upside to talking about balancing the budget. In fact, Republican leadership think it’s the winning argument as the party again starts battling with Democrats over the nation’s fiscal future.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), GOP leadership staff and Ryan himself were all briefed on the poll results, according to several GOP sources.

(PHOTOS: CPAC straw poll results)

The poll showed that 45 percent of Democratic voters think “balancing … the federal budget would significantly increase economic growth and create millions of American jobs.” A sky-high 61 percent of independents and 76 percent of Republicans agree.

But the data Republicans culled are much more granular than that.

Sixty-four percent of voters in Democratic-held districts — dubbed offensive districts by the NRCC — think balancing the budget creates a massive number of jobs. Swing district voters overwhelmingly agreed — to the tune of 62 percent. Fifty-seven percent of voters in Democratic districts represented by Republicans agree, as well.

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It’s not only the broad idea of balancing the budget that’s a winner, but how Republicans want to do it also polls well. Seventy percent of voters in districts Republicans are targeting, and 67 percent of swing district voters support balancing the budget by reforming entitlements and cutting spending.

And while the chattering class in Washington lambastes Ryan for including the repeal of Obamacare in his budget, the poll — conducted by the GOP firm OnMessage Inc. — shows that it remains a sharp political tool in some districts.

Fifty-one percent of voters in swing districts and 56 percent in GOP-targeted districts want to repeal the law. But the repeal is taking a backseat, perhaps because just 47 percent of respondents in Democratic districts held by Republicans think it’s a good idea while 48 percent oppose peeling back the laws. Ryan’s budget includes a repeal of Obamacare but also keeps in place roughly $700 billion in savings from Medicare that come from the health care overhaul.

With the kickoff of Washington’s budget wars, House Republicans are launching a politically ambitious — some would say risky — plan to balance the budget in a decade, while renewing their commitment to overhauling Medicare by turning it into a premium support program. Practically, it’s a plan they can’t walk away from. They’ve voted on some version of Ryan’s budget several times — if they reverse course, they’ll be attacked by Democrats as abandoning their policies and by the right as being cowards.

In the past, the center of gravity of the Republican political strategy was figuring out how to talk about their plan to overhaul Medicare. In 2011, they polled districts across the country, seeking a strategy for how to talk about Medicare. This time around, they polled 18 congressional districts, uncovering that the most effective message was, broadly, about balancing the budget.

“A balanced budget will help get our economy growing and create more jobs — making life better for the American people,” said Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman. “In the 1990s, President [Bill] Clinton embraced a balanced budget, and it’s a proud part of his legacy. But today, Washington Democrats — led by President Obama — insist on trillion-dollar tax hikes and still never, ever balance the budget.”

The districts Republicans polled lay bare the party’s political strategy going into 2014. They surveyed three types: top Democratic targets, districts where Mitt Romney couldn’t garner 47 percent of the vote and traditional swing districts.

Top Democratic targets include Reps. Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), John Barrow (Ga.), Nick Rahall (W. Va.), Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.).

Districts where Romney got less than 47 percent — essentially Democratic-leaning districts represented by Republicans — include: Reps. Gary Miller and Jeff Denham of California, Chris Gibson (N.Y.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Tom Latham (Iowa) and Mike Coffman (Colo.).

Swing districts, as defined by the NRCC, include Reps. Rodney Davis (Ill.), Joe Heck (Nev.), John Kline (Minn.), Bill Young (Fla.), Buck McKeon (Calif.) and Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.).

Republicans are aiming to make the budget fight uncomfortable for Democrats by centering in on a message that plays well with middle-of-the-road voters. Democratic leadership says it’s extremely unlikely that its members will support the Ryan budget. Also on deck this week is likely to be a bill that would keep the government open until the end of 2013.

The polling was done after Ryan’s budget policies were more or less in place. The data behind the budget was meant to make lawmakers comfortable with their vote. McCarthy and Ryan have spent weeks explaining the budget to Republican lawmakers.

Polls like this are always taken with a grain of salt. It’s a Republican poll, so the questions are worded to yield results the GOP is seeking. Just 1,200 voters were surveyed. Plus, it’s easy to support balancing the budget, but the proposition becomes far less popular when voters hear what’s involved with shrinking the nation’s budget deficit.

And of course, the Republican plan to overhaul Medicare is hardly a proven winner: the party has had mixed success using it in elections. In fact, privately, top GOP leaders and operatives concede that they can only fight the Medicare argument to a draw. For example, 36 percent of swing voters think that the GOP plan to overhaul Medicare is a “voucher program that would cost seniors $6,400 more a year,” while 38 percent think Republicans are saving Medicare. Quite simply, the GOP hasn’t mastered this policy corner.

Furthermore, Democratic messaging on the budget is not toothless. Sixty-one percent of respondents in Republican target districts agree with the Democratic message that “we have to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in order to balance our federal budget.” But 72 percent of those voters also agree with the GOP message that the government has to “cut spending to balance our budget because doing so is critical to growing our economy and creating middle-class jobs.”

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