Less than 24 hours after Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate on Saturday, his campaign was already trying to distance itself from Mr. Ryan’s politically toxic budget plan. His budget is not ours, the campaign said; Mr. Romney “will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance.”

It’s no wonder that Mr. Romney does not want to take full responsibility for his running mate’s ideas. Mr. Romney hasn’t issued a real budget plan and appears to have no interest in doing so before the election, perhaps for fear that voters might realize how little they would like it. Mr. Ryan, on the other hand, has assembled two spending plans, both of which were passed by the House. While the country is fortunate they were never enacted, they reveal Republican priorities in a way that Mr. Romney up to now has avoided.

Most voters know little about Mr. Ryan. Those who have heard of him are probably most familiar with his Medicare plan, which would turn the program into a voucher system that would pay beneficiaries a fixed amount for their medical care, leaving them on their own if the voucher did not cover their costs.

This notion so alarmed the public last year that Mr. Ryan was forced to backtrack and leave the existing Medicare system as an option. Even so, the plan would leave older Americans on average with $6,400 in extra costs by 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.