The quick death in the U.S. Senate this past week of a proposed bipartisan, Republican-chaired fiscal commission to furnish a tough plan for addressing the budget’s sprawling deficit strikes us as especially disheartening considering the mileage Republicans have gotten out of the issue this past year.

In the end, many in the Senate’s GOP hierarchy helped kill the plan, and for that their complaints about runaway spending must forever ring hollow.

News of the vote was lost amid attention lavished on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Say what you will of this president, but both he and Scott Brown, the Republican conservative elected a week earlier to the U.S. Senate, supported this budget commission, the idea of Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., two of that body’s most celebrated fiscal hawks.

The idea behind this commission, which would have been chaired by former Sen. Pete Domenici, would have called for eight Republicans, eight Democrats and two White House appointees to dissect our massive budget this year and submit a plan to either pay for programs or make draconian cuts. Congress would have to adopt the plan, without amendment or legislative meddling, by an up-or-down vote.

Although the president and star senator-elect from Massachusetts backed the idea, neither could vote on it this past week. Old-style Democrats fearful of beloved social programs being cut opposed it, and some anti-tax groups put aside their usual rhetoric about rampant spending and urged conservatives to vote against it for fear it might raise taxes.

In the end, the plan to form a deficit-busting commission fell seven votes short of the required 60 in the Senate — and the very week senators also voted to hike the national debt ceiling by a whopping $1.9 trillion. The president, to his credit, says he’ll appoint an executive commission to do the same work, though Congress won’t have to acknowledge it.

We’re proud of those lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, who stood up for fiscal responsibility, including Texas’ John Cornyn, who bucked GOP leadership and rallied for this commission. By the same token, we’re disappointed in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for voting against the commission.

One thing’s sure. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, part of the GOP’s old guard, and Sen. Jim DeMint, darling of the Tea Party set, come on TV next time to complain and whine about runaway federal spending and lack of fiscal restraint, don’t fall for their rhetoric. They and other lawmakers had a golden chance last week to bring this serious issue into the public forum and instead they neatly sidestepped the crisis.