GOP budget: Cut here, cut there, cut everywhere

Paul Ryan is a budget cutting machine. His ambitious new proposal tackles Medicaid, Medicare, long-term debt and short-term spending.

Most of the eye-popping $6 trillion in savings over the next decade come from getting a handle on those long-term issues.

But there would also be upfront pain for Americans. Ryan's plan would slash a small part of the budget -- non-security discretionary spending -- to pre-2008 levels.

Specifically, the House Budget Committee chairman would cut $79 billion in "non-security" funds in 2012 and more than $1 trillion over 10 years.

The sheer size of the cuts means a virtual wrecking ball of spending reductions will cut across many government agencies. That much we know. Which programs are on the chopping block? That's far less clear.

And really, that's not the point. Budget resolutions like the one Ryan unveiled Tuesday set top-line spending numbers, and it will be the work of the House Appropriations Committee to fill in the details.

"Budget resolutions are typically political documents, rather than policy-making proposals," said Craig Jennings, the director of federal fiscal policy at OMB Watch, a group that monitors federal spending.

Ryan's plan doesn't call for an across-the-board cut to all agency budgets. Instead he offers some hints about what programs he, and other Republicans, would like to cut.

Ryan employs a shotgun approach, picking and choosing budget cut ideas from the slew of proposals that have been floated in recent months.

First up: H.R. 1. Ryan says his budget builds on the cuts passed by the House earlier this year. He calls it "the largest spending reduction in non-defense discretionary spending in the history of the republic."

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High-speed rail funding would get the axe, farm subsidies would be reduced and the Environmental Protection Agency budget would take a hit.