LAST WEEK, ON THE terrace of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill, a crowd of demonstrators from around the country held aloft catchy signs saying things like "Rescue Taxpayers from Floods of Red Ink" and "Deficit Spending is Disaster Pending." Members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, meanwhile, unveiled their assault on the spend-what-you-will attitude plaguing Congress.

The effort, titled "Operation Offset," was initiated by Indiana Republican Mike Pence, chairman of the group, with a twofold goal in mind: Find a way to fund Katrina recovery efforts, and find a way to get federal spending under control.

With damages from Hurricane Katrina estimated to exceed $200 billion (who knows what Hurricane Rita will add), and recognizing the pitfalls of raising taxes to cover the federal portion of this tab, members of the RSC have their work cut out for them. Though most conservatives are united in lambasting spending-gone-wild, they still debate what should be cut and for how long.

For example, Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky urged a moratorium on all nondefense earmarks for congressional districts--but only for a year. Lewis believes that these are the worst of times, requiring every constituency to sacrifice some cherished Paper Industry Hall of Fame or long-sought curriculum for the study of mariachi music (those are real examples). At the same time, he says, "there are certain projects that absolutely members need to work on behalf of their constituency."

Not Pence. He would be happy if the cuts lasted a little longer--say, forever. "It's almost like when a person is diagnosed with a very serious disease [such as] heart disease," Pence offers. "And the doctor says, 'Well, it would greatly help if you lost weight.' That event, that bad news, becomes the catalyst for the person to make hard choices that they had needed to make for a long time."

The Republican Study Committee's report, "RSC Budget Options 2005," proposes spending reductions under several headings. By far the largest savings to be had come under "Tough Options." Of these, the most controversial would delay for at least one year the Medicare prescription drug program, and repeal the highway earmarks dear to the hearts of legislators. The "Tough Options" could save $70 billion in 2006 alone. In total, the RSC report identifies potential savings of more than $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

Some of the savings would come from a laundry list of line items to be eliminated: subsidized loans to graduate students; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's public funding, which accounts for 15 percent of its budget; "Parents: the Anti-Drug" ads; Medicare reimbursement for penile implants; and so on.

Other proposals would eliminate duplication. The president's Millennium Challenge Accounts, for example, designed to give foreign-aid recipients incentives to become fiscally responsible, apparently were a supplement to, not a replacement for, USAID programs that poured money into African corruption; the RSC wants the Millennium Challenge Accounts eliminated, to save $24.4 billion over a decade.

And the RSC calls for increased accountability: One member, from Maryland, wants to cut funding to any U.N. member nation that votes against U.S. interests more than 50 percent of the time.