Leaders of the Republican Party have spent a lot of time trying to convince us they really care about low-income Americans. Paul Ryan put out a report on poverty. Marco Rubio vowed to strengthen the safety net. Rand Paul talked about saving Detroit.

But the real test of Republican priorities isn’t what they say. It’s what they propose to do with the federal budget. And on Thursday, House Republicans made their priorities abundantly clear when they passed the Ryan Budget without any Democratic support. The plan balances the budget in 10 years through dramatic spending cuts, particularly on programs and services for low-income Americans. Unsurprisingly, those cuts have been pilloried around the liberal Internet for their cruelty and hypocrisy.

That critique is true. But focusing on the Ryan budget’s moral failings obscures its equally apparent logical flaws. For all the axe-wielding, it does little to tackle the drivers of our long-term debt—the rationale behind the steep cuts to begin with.

Here’s a quick rundown:

1. The budget calls for severe spending cuts, in a way that’s likely to undermine the recovery. Ryan says the overriding goal of his budget is to reduce spending, in order to shrink the size of the federal government. It’s actually something that Republicans have already succeeded in doing, more than most Americans probably realize. Through sequestration and other legislation, Republicans have secured $2.6 trillion in spending cuts from 2015 to 2024. Now Ryan is asking to cut spending even more, so that the budget deficit would disappear altogether within the next decade. With a little hand-waving—Ryan assumes that his plan would unleash extra economic growth, generating an extra $175 billion in revenue—the budget would seem to accomplish that goal.