Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Republicans "have to explain to the American people how they voted for a budget that includes all of the Medicare savings from Obamacare, that includes the same level of revenue generated from Obamacare and, in fact, would not even balance in 10 years, if not for the Affordable Care Act," Van Hollen said. "That's misleading and that's a hoax," he added.

"I mean, it's clear that I was in my district during August, listening to my constituents -- " Graves began, but was interrupted by Van Hollen. "I asked a question about the budget, Tom," he said. "You guys passed a budget that assumes big parts of Obamacare are kept."

The Republican budget rests on a particularly brazen sleight of hand , Rep. Chris Van Hollen pointed out on ABC's This Week: At the same time as Republicans have voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare, their budget relies on it to be balanced.Van Hollen's Republican counterpart on the show, Georgia Rep. Tom Graves, followed his party's strategy and tried to change the subject, as if he could magic away the conflict between the budget and all those repeal attempts.Ah, but Graves' constituents don't know that, so they're a safe topic for him to try to talk about.

This is a great measure of how totally unserious Republicans are about governing. Perhaps their signature ideas (at the federal level, anyway; at the state level the transvaginal ultrasound might get that title) are mutually exclusive. And yet each, in isolation, tends to be treated by the media as a real idea, something Republicans are actually trying to accomplish. These people are not serious. They are not sincere. They are nothing but vandals, even though they come in suits and ties, bearing charts and jargon, rather than on skateboards carrying spray paint.