"Yes," Mr. Ryan answered.
"That's not going to happen," Mr. Wallace later commented.
Y'know, it 's SO much easier to balance a budget when you're able to use facts that don't exist. Just cut out billions of dollars that, in reality, you can't cut. At least it looks good on paper -- and in stump speeches. It's sort of the equivalent of the old Steve Martin joke, about how to make two million dollars. "First, get a million dollars."
Again, it's SO much easier to win a debating point when you're using fact that don't exist. I don't know if this is a Republican issue in general -- going back to when New Yorker writer Ron Suskind quoted a high-ranking Bush White House official (believed to be Karl Rove) chastising those people who lived in a "reality-based community," saying that instead, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." (So, how did that work out for them?) -- or just a Wisconsin Republican thing. Either way, reality and facts have a funny way of rearing their ugly heads.