Ryan taps four freshmen for Budget panel

Joining Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will be Republican Reps. Luke Messer (Ind.), Jackie Walorski (Ind.), Roger Williams (Texas) and Tom Rice (S.C.).

Messer comes to Congress as the former executive director of Hoosiers for Economic Growth (HEG), a privately funded not-for-profit advocacy group. He previously served as the executive director of the Indiana Republican Party and is close to budget hawk Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Prior to his election, Rice was a lawyer at Rice, MacDonald, & Hicks where he was a specialist in tax law, and he served as the Chairman of the Horry County Council.

Walorski served in the Indiana House of Representatives and was previously a television reporter.

Williams, who owns an automobile dealership, previously served as the Texas secretary of State under Gov. Rick Perry. 

The committee is seeing a fair amount of turnover this year.

Eight Republicans have left the committee. Centrist Rep. Mike Simpson (Idaho) is gone from the panel, as are Tea Party-backed sophomores Reps. Mick Mulvaney (S.C.), Justin Amash (Mich.) and Tim Huelskamp (Kan.). The latter two were forcibly removed by leadership.

Also leaving the committee are Reps. Marlin Stutzman (Ind.) and Todd Young (Ind.).

Rep. Todd Akin (Mo.) ran for Senate and lost and Rep. Frank Guinta (N.H.) lost his reelection bid. 

Joining the committee to keep a GOP total of 22 members are Reps. Vicki Hartzler (Mo.), Jim Rennaci (Ohio), Alan Nunnelee (Miss.) and Scott Rigell (Va.).

The Budget Committee is expected to mark up a budget resolution around the third week of March. The Congressional Budget Office delivered a new budget baseline on Tuesday allowing work to get under way in earnest even though President Obama is slated to be weeks late delivering his own proposal, which normally kicks off the annual budget process.

Ryan has committee to writing a more conservative budget this year that would balance by 2023. To do that, CBO said Tuesday that Ryan will have to cut spending by at least $4 trillion.