One reality in the fiscal debate changed on Monday. And one did not.

Here’s the reality that changed: President Obama can no longer accuse House Republicans of failing to present a plan for reducing the deficit. On Monday afternoon, Speaker John Boehner did just that, in a letter to the president laying out the basic parameters of what his caucus would be willing to accept—pushing up the retirement age for Medicare, reducing the growth of Social Security benefits, and closing tax loopholes to raise a modest amount of revenue.

Here’s the reality that didn’t change: Obama has insisted that any deal meet several conditions—among them, higher income tax rates on the wealthy, an end to the debt ceiling drama, and stimulus for the fragile recovery. Republicans have said no way. And with this proposal, Boehner and the Republicans are still saying … no way. The new proposal merely commits to paper a few ideas that Republicans have been floating for the last few weeks. It does so with the usual level of specificity—which is to say, very little specificity at all.

It’s progress, of a sort. At least both sides in the negotiation now have official positions for which they can be held accountable. For example, the offer should make clear, once and for all, which party is eager to cut benefits for seniors. (Hint: It’s the party that just proposed to cut benefits for seniors.) But the actual positions of the two parties have not changed. And that means this offer remains far from anything Obama and the Democrats should even contemplate accepting—for the very simple reason that accepting it seems far worse than going over the “fiscal cliff” on January 1.

Remember, January 1 is the date when all of the Bush tax cuts expire, thereby restoring rates to what they were during the Clinton era. It’s the date when a series of substantial spending cuts automatically start to take effect, taking a big bite out of domestic programs and a bigger bite out of defense spending. It's the date when a payroll tax holiday and extensions of unemployment insurance, designed to bolster growth and ease human misery while the economy remains weak, expire.