"The voters … told Republicans in Washington what they think of the Ryan plan," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "They told them exactly what they think about ending Medicare as we know it. I hope they got the message."

Democrats control the Senate with 53 votes, so Wednesday's vote on the Ryan plan is sure to fail. Several moderate Republicans, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts have said they'll vote against the measure. Tea party favorite Rand Paul, R-Ky., says he'll oppose the Ryan plan from the right since it doesn't actually balance and would add trillions of dollars to the U.S. debt.

The votes won't come on the various budgets themselves by instead on motions to simply begin debate on them.

Under Congress' arcane budget process, a budget plan is not actual legislation but a nonbinding blueprint that sets a framework for future legislation. While it sets goals for raising or lowering taxes and imposing spending cuts, in most years the vote on a so-called budget resolution is mostly symbolic. In many years, that follow-up legislation is simply a round of appropriations bills.

With the House and Senate controlled by different parties, there's no hope for a final compromise between the two chambers.

In fact, Democrats have pulled the plug on the budget process for now, awaiting the results of negotiations between Vice President Joe Biden and senior lawmakers in both parties that are aimed at producing an agreement on a package of spending cuts exceeding $1 trillion over the coming decade. The cuts would be packaged with must-pass legislation to permit the government to keep issuing bonds to finance its operations and keep its promises to investors in U.S. debt as it faces a deficit of $1.6 trillion this year.

The Biden-led talks are expected to take several weeks or longer as an Aug. 2 deadline for raising the so-called debt limit looms.

Republicans have been blasting Democrats on a daily basis for their failure to produce a budget, saying they're failing to live up to their responsibility as the Senate's majority party.

"At a moment when our debts and deficits threaten the very future of our nation, Democrats have no excuse for proposing no vision of their own,' said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The top Republican on the Budget panel Sen. Jeff Session of Alabama hasn't offered an alternative, either, though conservative Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have offered stringent plans that are expected to be easily rejected.