The Republican Study Committee [RSC] is a caucus of over 170 conservative members of the Republican Party in the United States House of Representatives. Though the primary functions of the Republican Study Committee vary from year to year, it has always pushed for significant cuts in non-defense spending, advocated socially conservative legislation, and supported the right to keep and bear arms. In 2010, the Committee pushed for $25 billion in budget cuts to non-existent government programs. It has proposed an alternative budget every year since 1995, with notable decreases in pork spending. It has unveiled its plan to balance the budget without increasing taxes on the wealthy. Its alternative budget proposals are regularly praised by the editors of National Review, a leading conservative journal of opinion. The RSC's current Executive Director is Paul Teller.

The RSC's key legislative initiatives are detailed in the American Taxpayer Bill of Rights, unveiled in March 2007.

It was founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative activists to keep a watch on the House Republican leadership, which they saw at the time as too moderate. Their formation mirrored the rise of the Democratic Study Group, a liberal force in the House Democratic Caucus founded in 1948. The group's first chairman was Phil Crane of Illinois. The group briefly dissolved in 1995 after the Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Stephen Joseph "Steve" Scalise (born October 6, 1965) is the U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 1st congressional district, serving since 2008. He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously served in the Louisiana Senate and the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Scalise graduated from the Catholic Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie in Jefferson Parish and earned a bachelor of science degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, with a major in computer programming and a minor in political science. While at Louisiana State University Representative Scalise was initiated as a member of the Acacia Fraternity.

Scalise was elected three times to the Louisiana House of Representatives: 1995, 1999, and 2003. His legislative peers named him to the House Appropriations Committee as the representative of the First Congressional District. Scalise initially succeeded fellow Republican Representative Quentin D. Dastugue, who made an ill-fated bid for governor in the 1995 primary. Scalise opposed the 2002 Stelly Plan, a proposal by Lake Charles Representative Vic Stelly to reduce certain state sales taxes on food for home consumption and utilities in exchange for higher state income taxes.

Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party, and has been ranked among the party's most influential voices on economic policy.

Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan graduated from Miami University in Ohio and later worked as a marketing consultant for Ryan Incorporated Central, run by a branch of his family. In the mid to late 1990s, he worked as an aide to United States Senator Bob Kasten, as legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and as a speechwriter for former U.S. Representative and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp of New York. In 1998, Ryan won election to the United States House of Representatives, succeeding the two-term incumbent, fellow Republican Mark Neumann.

Ryan currently chairs the House Budget Committee, where he has played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party's long-term budget proposal. He introduced a plan, The Path to Prosperity, in April 2011 as an alternative to the budget proposal of President Barack Obama, and helped introduce The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal in March 2012, in response to Obama's 2013 budget. Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns Program, an electoral recruitment and campaign effort by House Republicans. He endorsed Republican presidential candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney for the 2012 United States presidential election. Ryan has been considered as a possible running mate for Romney.

Avik Roy is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of the Forbes blog The Apothecary. He has stated he is an "outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues." He is a contributor to National Review Online, where he's described as a member of Mitt Romney's Health Care Policy Advisory Group.

George Frederick Will (born May 4, 1941) is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics. By the mid 1980s the Wall Street Journal reported he was "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America," in a league with Walter Lippmann (1889–1975).

Will was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Frederick L. Will and Louise Hendrickson Will. His father was a professor of philosophy, specializing in epistemology, at the University of Illinois.

Will graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut (B.A., Religion, 1962). He subsequently studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in politics from Princeton University. His 1968 Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society.

From 1970 to 1972, he served on the staff of Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO). Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998.