Tuesday, Idaho Republicans repudiated the fringe of their party. The people who won GOP primary elections stood for conservative but effective government. The people who lost - call them Tea Party enthusiasts or Ron Paul acolytes - advocated more radical cuts. They were left on the sidelines.

Somehow, that message eluded Idaho's two Republican U.S. senators.

Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the presidential candidate's son, took to the Senate floor with an extreme plan to cut the federal budget:

On average, Social Security benefits would drop 39 percent. The early retirement age would rise. Cost of living adjustments would fall. At present, 269,293 Idahoans are drawing Social Security. Unlike the House Republican budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Paul would cut Medicare benefits for current recipients. He'd eliminate the program in two years and replace Medicare with a voucher program. The eligibility age would rise to 70. That's bad news for Idaho's 232,471 seniors now on Medicare. Food stamps, a program that supports one in seven Idahoans, would be cut 40 percent, throwing 20 million people off the program. The Department of Energy would be dismantled and spending on energy programs would drop 85 percent. Can you say goodbye to the Idaho National Laboratory? During a decade, spending for the Department of Defense would fall $89 billion below the Budget Control Act levels - and $129 billion below what the Pentagon says it needs. How long before those losses trickle down to Mountain Home Air Force Base and the Air National Guard base at Gowen Field? Gone would be some familiar agencies, such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Agricultural Research Service.

Rather than plow all of these savings into plugging the budget deficit, Paul turns around and hands over big bundles of cash to the well-off while imposing a harsher tax burden on the poor. Tax rates on upper-income individuals and families would collapse to a flat 17 percent for everyone. Capital gains and dividends would not be taxed at all. Neither would large inheritances. In all, that would expand the deficit by $575 billion during 10 years - after sticking it to lower- and middle-class families by repealing the Child Tax Credit. He'd also eliminate the Earned Income Tax Credit, which keeps low-income families afloat.

Granted, that analysis comes from the Democratic staff of the Senate Budget Committee. But a couple of facts are beyond dispute.

Rand's plan takes the already severe Ryan budget backed by House Republicans and squeezes another $94 billion out of it.

And Rand's budget appealed only to a minority of his own caucus. When it came to a vote, all 53 Democrats voted no.

So did 30 Republicans. Among them were moderates such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. But joining them were former Club for Growth President Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio of Florida and Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Who was left? Sixteen members, including both of Idaho's senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

Risch's vote is less surprising than Crapo. A member of the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission and the Gang of Six, Crapo has been willing to take heat for expressing the harsh reality: This budget won't balance without new revenues.

So what's going on here?

Crapo and Risch argue this was a symbolic vote, one of four budget measures the GOP minority presented Wednesday to press Democrats who haven't even passed a budget in three years. All were preliminary. None had a chance of passage.

But that hardly explains why they would stand with Paul's heartless, if not thoughtless, plan when so many of their fellow Republicans - both within Idaho and on the Senate floor - walked away.