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The Senate Republican budget slated for release next week is expected to generate savings by turning more responsibility for Medicaid and food-stamp programs over to states, GOP lawmakers and aides said Thursday. ... Under the current system, Medicaid programs are administered by the states, but an average of 57% of their budgets come from federal funds, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. Republicans have proposed similar moves in the past, but have encountered Democratic resistance. ... To get a sense of potential savings, under last year’s House GOP budget, converting the food-stamp programs into a block grant starting in 2019 would have saved $125 billion over 10 years. The document also estimated that overhauling Medicaid would trim $732 billion over a decade. (Peterson, 3/12)

The House and Senate Budget Committees won’t roll out their tax and spending plans until next week. But all indications are the savings target for reconciliation won’t come close to the trillions needed to reach balance by 2025. Part of this is practical politics given President Barack Obama’s veto. But in a surprising twist, a lot also has to do with new, lower cost estimates for the law the GOP loves to hate: the Affordable Care Act. Just this past Monday, the Congressional Budget Office trimmed $209 billion from its prior January estimate for the 10-year cost of subsidies and related spending and revenues for the health exchanges. That’s a 20 percent drop in the space of two months, and those are the same exchange subsidies threatened by a Republican-backed lawsuit before the Supreme Court. If the justices were to strike down the subsidies this summer, Republicans would be under pressure to come up with some relief for the millions who would find it harder to keep their health coverage. (Rogers, 3/12)

The federal government ran a slightly smaller deficit in February than a year ago but the imbalance through the first five months of the budget year is still running ahead of last year. ... But Republicans, who now control both the House and the Senate, have attacked Obama’s plan for raising taxes and failing to tackle rising costs for the government’s biggest benefit programs, Social Security and Medicare. GOP lawmakers have pledged that the budgets they put together in coming weeks will eliminate deficits over the next decade. (3/12)