There is an excellent essay in Time, by Michael Grunwald, on the current state of the Republican party. Summary: not good. No kidding, and it is unlikely to get better, as he notes, when they double-down on ideas that have been pretty clearly rejected by the voters.

House Republicans, eager to shed the Party of No label, recently unveiled an alternative to Obama’s 2010 budget. It was the kind of fiasco that shows why Washington thinks Republicans are in trouble — and why they really are in trouble.

The disaster began when GOP leaders, after calling a news conference to blast Obama’s numbers, released a budget outline with no numbers — just magic assumptions about “reform.” The mockery was instantaneous. Then Republicans began blaming one another for the stunt, which generated only more mockery about circular firing squads. And when they finally released the missing details on April 1, the notion of an April Fools’ budget produced even more mockery; the substance was ignored. “The President’s dog got more attention,” recalls Paul Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee.

But if you pay attention, the GOP alternative is not just a p.r. disaster. It’s a radical document, making Bush’s tax cuts permanent while adding about $3 trillion in new tax cuts skewed toward the rich.