Article from Reason by Eric Boehm.

If Rand Paul’s budget proposal was, as he said, a litmus test for conservatives, most of them failed it.

The Senate on Thursday resoundingly rejected the Kentucky Republican’s plan to balance the federal budget by 2023, voting 76 to 21 against a bill that would have required a $400 billion cut in federal spending next year, followed by 1 percent spending increases for the rest of the next decade. Republican hawks took the floor to blast Paul for trying to undermine the American military, even though his proposal would have let Congress decide how much to cut from each department, including the Pentagon.

“Let me tell you what that means to the military,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) before voting against the bill. “Devastation. This budget throws our military in the ditch.”

Hardly. Even if the entire $400 billion cut Paul proposed were applied to the Pentagon, America would still spend far more on the military than any other nation. But even the suggestion that defense spending could be cut is enough to scare most Republicans away from facing fiscal reality. As Paul pointed out on Thursday, the national debt and $1 trillion deficits are bigger threats to America’s long-term national security than a reduction in funding for the Pentagon. “There is waste from top to bottom in every department of the government, including the military,” Paul said, noting that one Pentagon agency managed to misplace $800 million, according to a recent audit.

Read the entire article at Reason.