Last week, I called the Republicans' budget "a dead plan walking." I was referring in particular to the proposal to "reform" Medicare by replacing direct payments with vouchers for private insurance. Most Americans are not pleased by this proposal, which they correctly regard as a benefits cuts, and many of them have said so angrily at town hall meetings across the country.

It seems that the GOP got the message. The New York Times reports that House Republicans are backing away from the Medicare proposal they voted for just last month.

During Thursday's budget negotiations, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor didn't talk much about Medicare. "He didn’t need to talk about it in that room," said one participant. "Everyone knows it's dead." Cantor acknowledged to reporters, "The reality is this president has excoriated our budget plan and the Medicare proposal in the plan."*

But there's one problem with Republicans' apparent decision to excise the Medicare proposal: that's where the savings were supposed to come from. The Republican budget would save very little money until after 2022, when the Medicare cuts were to kick in.

According to Congressional Budget Office projections, the budget plan would save an amount equivalent to 12 percent of the GDP in 2050. A full two-thirds of those savings would come from Medicare and Medicaid savings.

Stripped of Medicare, the Republican budget proposal is half-naked, and its vaunted spending reductions are increasingly exposed as little more than a mechanism for funding the massive tax cuts it promotes.

*Oddly, Rep. Cantor did not mention a blogger named Michael Wolraich, aka Genghis, but my CNN op-ed did get a tweet from Ryan Love, newly elected Secretary for MN GOP CD2, Deputy Chair of SD35: @wolraich Leans Left, but nice article: "Republicans' Medicare blunder"