MICHAEL BARONE: Ryan’s budget kicks the can at timorous Democrats.

By proposing budgets that cut tax rates, require future changes in Medicare, maintain current defense spending rather than cutting it, and rein in discretionary domestic spending, Ryan has supposedly gone out on a dangerous limb.

And his fellow House Republicans, elected in a year of protest against huge increases in government spending and deficits, have been willing to go with him.

Ryan is arguing that we are on an unsustainable course that will lead inevitably to a debt crisis requiring far more painful adjustments than anything he is proposing. He notes that the Congressional Budget Office cannot even model the economy past 2027 because of looming debt. Think Greece.

His Senate counterpart, Democratic Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, tends to agree. But he’s been blocked from offering a budget by Harry Reid, Charles Schumer and others with their eyes always on the next election.

So it’s not a “do-nothing Congress,” but rather a “do-nothing Senate.” Got it.