Not doing a budget resolution means there can't be reconciliation, and without reconciliation the biggest parts of the GOP's legislative agenda will be virtually impossible to enact. This includes a "technical corrections" tax bill, House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-WI) intense desire to cut Medicaid and other mandatory programs and most of the Trump infrastructure plan. It also means that the White House and congressional Republicans have to give up whatever remains of their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In other words, the GOP can't be making the decision not to do a budget — basically the equivalent of admitting that Congress and the White House aren't going to accomplish much of anything significant this year — without a great deal of thought.

So why isn't the GOP going to do a budget? Because the vote on the 2019 budget — the last one Congress will consider before the 2018 midterm elections — will reveal that all the Republican promises on the deficit and debt, including its blind belief on dynamic scoring, were completely bogus.