This Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted on five different budget proposals. Each of the four Republican plans were defeated by comfortable margins, but President Obama’s plan suffered the worst defeat — a unanimous 99 to 0. It was not the first such vote. Not only have Senate Democrats failed to pass a budget in over three years, but not a single Democratic senator has voted for any budget brought to the floor over that time period.

In a meeting with The Washington Examiner’s editorial board on Thursday, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered a theory as to why this is so. “They don’t want to show you what their vision of government costs,” he said. Because the Democrats are studiously avoiding entitlement reform, “the kinds of tax increases you would have to see, on paper, to avert a debt crisis, are the kinds you have never seen before … They would rather take the knock that they’re doing nothing than show you what they would do if they could do it.”