WHAT A TEA PARTY BUDGET LOOKS LIKE

The numbers in their proposals are staggering. Paul wants to slash $500 billion in fiscal year 2011, which only has eight remaining months. Bachmann lists more than $400 billion in cuts.

The proposals are not likely to go very far as legislation. But at a time when lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledge the need for fiscal restraint, the Paul and Bachman proposals clearly stake out one extreme.

Among Paul's proposals: gut the Department of Energy and the Department of Education and sharply curtail discretionary spending.

The cuts:

legislative branch -- 23%
federal courts -- 32%
Agriculture Department -- 30%
Commerce Department -- 54%
Health and Human Services -- 26%
Homeland Security -- 43%
Interior Department -- 78%
The legislation also lists programs for elimination. How about ... the Affordable Housing Program, the Commission on Fine Arts, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the State Justice Institute.

Meanwhile, Bachmann's budget proposal, released on Tuesday, lists more than $400 billion in potential cuts.

Bachmann would replace farm subsidies with farmer savings accounts, eliminate or dramatically scale back the Department of Education (save $29 billion or $31 billion) and slash programs at the Department of Justice ($7.8 billion).

She would also cap Veterans Affairs health care spending, privatize the Transportation Safety Administration, Federal Aviation Administration and Amtrak, repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to leasing.

CONSERVATIVE GOP GROUP WANTS TO CUT 2.5 TRILLION IN SPENDING

Among the biggest items the legislation would eliminate and the annual savings from each:

Community Development Fund ($4.5 billion)
Intercity and high-speed rail grants ($2.5 billion a year)
Amtrak subsidies ($1.6 billion a year)
U.S. Agency for International Development ($1.4 billion)
Duplicative education programs ($1.3 billion)
Applied research at the Department of Energy ($1.27 billion)
National and Community Services Act programs ($1.15 billion)
Funding for a host of smaller programs would also be cut, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ($445 million a year); as well as both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities (a combined $335 million).

Among the spending reductions called for: the federal travel budget would be cut in half ($7.5 billion a year) as would the funding for congressional printing and binding ($47 million a year).