Republicans have returned from their home districts unable to sit without a generous application of Preparation H, because of the reaming they received at home from their constituents. So now they are proclaiming that they are backing off replacing Medicare with a voucher system and reassuring us that Medicare is safe. But are they telling the truth? If you believe it, talk to me about my tours offering deep sea fishing in Kansas. Since the direct approach failed, Republican Senators are now trying to kill Medicare through the back door with a ninja budget.

Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey and a group of fellow conservative Republican senators proposed a plan Tuesday that would balance the federal budget within nine years while avoiding for now radical changes to Medicare and Social Security that could be political poison.

The plan was announced as congressional leaders prepared to meet with White House negotiators on raising the ceiling on the government’s ability to borrow. GOP officials, including House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, are insisting on deep permanent cuts in future spending in exchange for a vote to increase the debt limit, which the administration says will be needed by sometime this summer.

Toomey, who has emerged as a GOP leader on fiscal policy in his first term, said he hoped to show it was possible to balance the budget without raising taxes or making apocalyptic cuts.

"Deficits are not inevitable; they can be stopped if we in Congress have the will," Toomey said.

In the proposal, federal spending would be lowered to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2021, down from an estimated 25 percent today. The national debt, now projected to reach 69 percent of the economy’s total output by the end of this year, would be reduced to 52 percent of GDP by 2021.

Toomey’s proposal differs from the House-passed GOP budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, which relied on converting the Medicare program of federally funded health care for the elderly into a system that would give vouchers to subscribers to buy private insurance.

That proposal drew intense fire from Democrats and constituents during the recent congressional recess, and GOP leaders have backed away from it.

The conservatives’ proposal would turn the Medicaid program of health care for the poor into a block-grant program for states, just as the Ryan budget would… [emphasis added]