Budget dramas, like TV murder mysteries, require a suspension of disbelief. In the end, the main characters will catch the murderer and the Democrats will get nearly every one of their priorities funded. No matter what.

Rep. Jamie Raskin is obviously going on MSNBC to brag about bringing home the pork, but there’s little reason to think that he’s lying. Apart from Ukraine, which the Dems don’t actually care about, they got what they wanted.

Before his victory tour on MSNBC, Raskin tried to make the case why endless federal spending is so vital.

I talked to a constituent this morning who’s the assistant director of gift shops at one of the Smithsonians, and she’s a federal contractor, as tens of thousands of my constituents are. She said, we live paycheck to paycheck. We don’t have a car. And her 19-year-old daughter is trying to save money to go to college. And so we’re talking about real people’s lives here.

Do we actually need an assistant director of gift shops at one of the Smithsonians or the Smithsonians at all?

All of this is being funded by people who do live paycheck to paycheck and their kids need to go to college.

Should those people really be on the hook for the assistant director of gift shops?

Republicans continue to be terrible at making the case for holding the line on federal spending, never mind on actually cutting it, because they’ve failed to communicate the fact that government spending is driving out-of-control debt and inflation, and that all of this ultimately falls on the shoulders of ordinary Americans.