WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are ready to ram through the House an election-year, $3.5 trillion budget that showcases their deficit-cutting plan for revamping Medicare and slicing everything from food stamps to transportation while rejecting President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on the rich.

The blueprint by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was headed for all but certain House passage today, mostly along party lines. It faces a demise that is just as sure in the Democratic run Senate, which plans to ignore it, but the battle remains significant because of the clarity with which it contrasts the two parties’ budgetary visions for voters.

Republicans were focused on sharper deficit reduction and starkly less government than Democrats wanted and were proposing to lower income tax rates while erasing many unspecified tax breaks. Obama and Democrats were ready to boost taxes on families making above $250,000 and on oil and gas companies, add spending for roads and schools and cull more modest savings from domestic programs.

“They’re choosing the next election over the next generation,” Ryan said, deriding Democrats’ plans as far too timid. He added, “ If we don’t tackle these fiscal problems soon, they’re going to tackle us as a country.”

Democrats said they, too, were eager to reduce deficits that now exceed $1 trillion annually. But they said it needed to be done in a more balanced way, with rich and poor alike sharing the load.

“It’s a path to greater prosperity — if you’re already wealthy,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, top Democrat on the budget panel, mocking the “Path to Prosperity” title Ryan has given his document. “Because our Republican colleagues refuse to ask millionaires to contribute one cent to deficit reduction, they hit everyone and everything else.”

In a pair of preliminary votes expected today, conservatives were offering their own proposal with deeper spending cuts and far faster deficit-reduction than the GOP plan, claiming to balance the budget in just five years. Democrats were pushing a measure featuring pumped-up spending for education and new tax credits for companies creating jobs and raising wages, while claiming savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, government waste and reductions in farm payments.

Both were destined to be defeated.

Underscoring the prickly partisan gulf over how to tackle the budget’s drastic imbalances, the House late Wednesday on a 382-38 vote easily shot down a compromise, bipartisan deficit-cutting plan by moderates of both parties that mingled tax increases with spending cuts.

The measure was modeled roughly on a package produced by Obama’s deficitreduction commission. The commission’s plan drew praise from prominent deficit foes but was treated coolly by Obama and congressional leaders of both parties.

The House also voted 414-0 Wednesday to reject Obama’s budget, with Democrats accusing the GOP of forcing the vote to embarrass them. Democrats were concerned Republicans would use campaign ads to link Democrats who supported Obama’s plan on all of its details.