The big news this morning is a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Paul Ryan, in which he dangles a new offer to President Obama and the Democrats. According to Ryan, Republicans could agree to fund the government (thereby ending the shutdown) and increase Treasury’s borrowing limit (thereby avoiding default) as long as Obama and the Democrats agree to negotiations over fiscal policy. Familiar Beltway interlocutors like NBC’s First Read are calling this a major breakthrough: “Ryan’s op-ed is a pretty big deal. It’s an olive branch (from its tone) and it lays a potential way out.”

Not so fast. Ryan’s offer is definitely less crazy than what Republicans have proposed previously. Primarily that’s because of what it doesn’t mention: Obamacare. It was a determination to undermine the new health care law that first led Republicans to shut down the government and threaten default. Ryan is suggesting, in effect, that Republicans give up trying to achieve this goal, at least in the context of this particular debate.

But let’s suppose that Ryan, House Speaker John Boehner, and their allies could get the Republican caucus to support this proposal. (That's no sure thing.) Would Republicans be giving up their ransom demands? Or simply reducing them?

It looks like the latter. Ryan in the op-ed doesn’t simply call for negotiations over fiscal policy. He also sketches out what a deal should look like. And it would involve major concessions from Democrats—cuts to Social Security benefits and more means-testing of Medicare, plus tax reform that, presumably, would not raise revenue. In exchange, Republicans would offer some relief from the budget cuts taking place from budget sequestration. But this isn’t much of a concession. Just as Democrats are unhappy about sequestration’s cuts to domestic spending, Republicans are unhappy with sequestration’s cuts to defense spending.

It’s hard to see how Republicans could get such a deal in a routine negotiation. Democrats would likely accept some benefit cuts, like the “Chained CPI” proposal that would reduce future Social Security payments, but only in exchange for some combination of new revenue and investment in infrastructure, universal pre-kindergarten, or other Democratic priorities. It doesn't sound like Ryan is offering any of those things—or that House Republicans would be willing to consider them. It's also possible that Democrats would accept a narrower deal, one that imposed different, milder changes to mandatory spending programs—for example, further changing the way Medicare pays for services—in order to end some sequestration cuts to domestic programs. In fact, over the last few months, many smart observers thought that such a deal might emerge from informal, unofficial talks taking place at the White House and on Capitol Hill. But this also doesn't appear to be what Ryan has in mind.