I don’t think that they do believe them. And I think your analysis astutely grasps the real situation: Things now stand where you indicate.
Thanks, lets see if you can buy this then....
There are two stands in particular that raised my suspicions to alarm levels.
I don't think they were ever serious about the original Ryan plan, that non-legislative symbolic proposal (house vote) was just meant to ward off primary challenges for the bills they are really passing into law and never meant by them to be seriously debated with Dems.
Either they never meant to win that debate or they are just clueless and inept.
But worse was that Debt limit closed door bill exactly a year ago that they (House Republicans like Ryan) passed with Obama and with the Republicans claiming it was a major success and victory to cut the deficit, yet now a year later they are calling the exact same bill's delayed cuts a doomsday budget and acting like they had NOTHING to do with passing it, trying to delay it another year. This one REALLY IRKS me.