If you’ve paid only sporadic attention to the haggling over the federal budget in recent weeks, you may have come away with the impression that Congress was engaged in a serious struggle over reducing the deficit. Well, not exactly.

It is true that Congress is struggling to reach an agreement. But it’s not serious, and it’s not over reducing the deficit. In fact, the whole budget debate has taken on a startling aura of unreality.

Remember that infamous “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska? Yes, it was cancelled with great fanfare. But was that a victory for fiscal sanity? Not exactly. The money was simply allocated to other, unspecified projects in Alaska. It didn’t save taxpayers a dime.

Digging deeper, many of the proposed economy measures are one-shot items or gimmicks that will improve the budget next year—which is not very important, while doing nothing for the long-run budget picture—which is where the real problem lies.

Most troubling of all, when you get down into the budgetary weeds, you learn that the tax cuts passed by the House this month are almost twice as large as the expenditure cuts it passed. Let me repeat that: Despite the huge budget deficit, the House actually voted to cut taxes by twice as much as it cuts spending. What are these people thinking?

This is a democracy. So maybe it’s time for the people to send their elected representatives a message. Earth to Congress: We have a problem.

I’m Alan Blinder.