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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013 3:43 PM UTC

GOP Senate candidate: Paul Ryan too moderate

Rep. Paul Broun, who is running for Georgia's Senate seat, pens Op-Ed demanding more austerity and cuts

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Topics: Paul Broun, Paul Ryan, Georgia, 2014 elections, Budget Showdown,

GOP Senate candidate: Paul Ryan too moderate (Credit: AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

In an Op-Ed for the New York Times, Tea Party Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., slams Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucherization plan as not austere enough, argues that the Education and Energy departments should be cut, and says that in general Ryan’s “ax isn’t sharp enough.”

“We ought to get rid of certain federal departments and agencies, stopping only to shift the role of governing back to the states, where it belongs,” Broun writes. “The Departments of Education and Energy, for example, are two bloated bureaucracies that we don’t need; their core functions would be absorbed by the states through block grants, saving taxpayers at least $500 billion over the next decade.”

From the Op-Ed:

As a family doctor for more than 30 years, I understand that we must look for savings in our health care system too. I recently co-sponsored legislation that would convert Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program into state-managed programs through a single federal block grant. This would save approximately $2 trillion over 10 years by capping federal funding at 2012 levels for the next 10 years and giving states an incentive to seek out and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. The government agency closest to the consumer can most efficiently manage taxpayer dollars.

We’re not done. We must repeal Obamacare — including the associated taxes, which the Ryan budget leaves intact by assuming the enactment of tax reform later on. We’ll replace it with a market-based health care system devoid of government involvement and managed by patients and their doctors, a plan I have described in my Patient Option Act.

Broun, who does not believe in evolution and recently boasted that he was the first to call President Obama a socialist, is running for Senate in 2014 to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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