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Facing a difficult election map in 2016, Senate Republicans are steering clear of entitlement reform changes that their House counterparts are demanding. Republicans in both chambers unveiled budgets earlier this week, with an eye towards negotiating a single fiscal plan in April. But while both budgets would balance within a decade by making trillions of dollars in cuts, their approach to Medicare is markedly different. (Schroeder and Becker, 3/21)

The new House and Senate Republican budgets make a big boast: They both balance the federal budget within 10 years, without raising taxes. Their own numbers, however, say millions of American families and businesses would have to pay more in taxes to make the math work — about $900 billion more over the next decade. Both budgets also claim big savings by repealing President Barack Obama's health law. But at the same time, they rely on more than $1 trillion in tax revenue from the health law that would supposedly be repealed. (Ohlemacher, 3/21)

House Republicans will vote this week on a budget resolution as well as a rare bipartisan compromise by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) designed to resolve a long-running problem over how much doctors are paid by the Medicare program. (Bresnahan and Kim, 3/22)

Senior White House adviser Brian Deese on Friday challenged Republicans in the House and Senate to say precisely how they would change Medicare and Medicaid. Deese’s comments come after Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Budget panel, said earlier this week that Republicans should put the baseline figures allocated to the programs in the budget and not list the reforms. (Cirilli, 3/20)

Cruz, who was elected to the Senate in 2012, soon established himself as an uncompromising conservative willing to take on Democrats and Republicans alike. He promises to repeal the federal health care law, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and scrap the Education Department. (3/23)