Somewhere, there is a long German word that exists only to describe the deep exhalation, the tired sigh, that everyone who read Paul Ryan's "new" budget felt today.

This is the 2013 Path to Prosperity budget that Ryan proposed to balance the federal budget by cutting $4.6tn in government spending over the next 10 years.

Like some sad fiscal remake of the movie Groundhog Day, this is also the same as Ryan's 2012 Path to Prosperity budget, and very much like Ryan's 2010 "Roadmap for America's Future" budget, only with a repeal of Obamacare mystifyingly included. This is the budget that since 2011 has not only failed to become law, but also lost House and Senate seats, as well as the White House, for the Republican party. This is the budget that evidently hopes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the hard-fought healthcare legislation that took years to draft and that has already survived one Supreme Court challenge. (Ryan argued that it will rob Americans of free choice and be a "fiscal trainwreck" to the government budget besides. In other words, the same arguments that he and other Republicans made in 2010.)

This budget, this budget. This is a budget that needs no spoiler alerts, because you've seen it all already. It's leftovers warmed up twice over. Obamacare repeal. Medicare vouchers. A plan to tax individuals and corporations at a maximum of 25% which, as even American Enterprise Institute blogger Jim Pethokoukis points out, "ain't gonna happen".

"The document's pretty similar to the one last year in which you stood there, and we sat here," one scribe asked Ryan about the budget at today's press conference. "And you know people will say that Ryan already did this …"

Ryan himself jumped in: "… the year before, and the year before …"

Ryan's retort – "So we stop believing in our principles?" – was disingenuous. Principles, in Washington, are shape-shifting things. Laws are not made of principles. They are made of compromises. Principles are subject to negotiation, as Ryan well knows.

As an example, look at a key part of Ryan's plan: Medicare as a voucher system. Ryan opposes Medicare in its current state – he believes it doesn't work and will go bankrupt – and he has railed against tax hikes in all their forms. Yet, to balance the budget, he is embracing what he most despises. He depending heavily on $600bn of this year's payroll tax hikes, which currently pay for – you guessed it – Medicare and Social Security.

What about principles? Asked about this apparent contradiction, Ryan replied: "We're not going to refight the past, because that's behind us … law is law. That's not going to change." Yet Ryan is tilting at Obamacare, which is also law, and also unlikely to change.

This – this lazy rehash – is the budget that Ryan used to exhort Democrats: "let's do our job!"

And so that heavy sigh is not even for Ryan and his stubborn efforts to resurrect the moldy corpses of a budget plan and a Republican strategy for winning elections that took their last breath two years ago. As he pointed out, at least he is doing something.

"If you don't like the way we balance the budget," he said in a comment directed at President Obama and Democrats. "Show us how you would balance the budget. This is a specific plan to show how to get it under control."

Specific, of course, is not the virtue Congress needs right now. "Workable" is.

The sigh is for lawmakers of all parties and the way they think: that the right answer now must be the wrong answer from 2011. That kind of repetitive thinking, that stubborn persistence of personal ego, that failure of pattern recognition, is why the fiscal cliff, the debt ceiling, the sequester budget cuts and the possibility of a government shutdown keep coming up time and again. It's because lawmakers are thinking about positioning themselves for future elections, and not legislating for the current economy.

Yet lawmakers can't get themselves out of the loop. In fact, they may not even know they're in a loop.

There are some blessings. At least investors don't cower in fear of Congressional dysfunction, since the stock market no longer cares what Congress does. Goldman Sachs strategist Alec Phillips wrote today about the budget process, "We don't expect this process to yield a political agreement, in light of significant differences between the parties, particularly on spending levels. That said, market expectations are already low, and a failure to reach agreement on the budget framework has few practical implications."

That phrase is more meaningful that it looks. "Few practical implications" means politicians who are hoping to gain leverage by freaking out the markets can't do that any more. Bring on the sequester, the budget, the Washington drama – Capitol Hill has lost the upper hand over the markets. The only thing that can bring it back is good ideas. Unfortunately, those are in short supply.