While there is absolutely no chance that the GOP's balanced budget proposal will ever be signed into law, the immediate problem for them is that they may not be able to pass it in a Congress that they control.
Some congressional Republicans want to pass what is essentially the Paul Ryan budget complete with magic asterisks in place of revenue, but other Republicans are demanding that defense spending be restored to levels not seen since before sequestration.
"I will not agree to any budget that does not stop sequestration," said Senator John McCain, a defense hawk who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to the across-the-board discretionary spending caps put in place by a 2011 budget deal.
Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte apparently feel the same way.
“I need a commitment from the leadership that we’re going to have an ability to fix sequestration,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week. “This is a defining moment for the Republican Party.”
Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who both sit on the Senate Budget Committee, are angling to get the fund included in the GOP budget resolution being drafted by Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
For Democrats, increased defense spending is the least concerning element of the GOP's budget blueprint.
While some senators say they will not support legislation that does not boost defense spending, they have no qualms about supporting legislation that would cut taxes for the rich and radically transform social programs in the name of deficit reduction.
I can only laugh when Republicans promise to "eliminate deficits within 10 years" because, as things stand, the deficit will be almost entirely eliminated by the time President Obama leaves office in two years. Furthermore, the massive tax cuts championed by the Republican party would explode the federal deficit.
Tax cut magic, or "dynamic scoring," is a nice fantasy on paper that doesn't bear fruit in the real world.