Remember back during the last debt ceiling crisis?

[BigDave]

The liberals wanted some kind of ratio (like 4:1) of spending cuts to tax increases? (The exact ratio didn't really matter.) "Surely that's fair", they proclaimed - they were going to accept four times as much stuff they didn't like as we were. (Never mind that simply holding spending steady would be a $9 trillion "cut".)

But the Republicans held firm and the administration came up with the idea for the sequester. (Despite the claim that it's a Republican sequester, it was Gene Sperling - the head of the White House Economic Council - who came up with it and pushed it, before deciding after the fact that he didn't like it.)

Anyway, Republicans said no, pointing out history: every time we do one of these deals, the tax hikes take effect immediately, whereas the spending cuts are always for some time in the future and never actually happen.

Well, sure enough, the regime wants to end the sequester. Just imagine if we had agreed to have tax hikes. We would be left with the tax increases and no budget cuts.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why agreeing with tax hikes is a very bad idea. It doesn't matter what the deal says - whatever you get in return for the tax hikes will go away, but the higher taxes are here forever.

[Marine Hokie]

The liberals wanted some kind of ratio (like 4:1) of spending cuts to tax increases? (The exact ratio didn't really matter.) "Surely that's fair", they proclaimed - they were going to accept four times as much stuff they didn't like as we were. (Never mind that simply holding spending steady would be a $9 trillion "cut".)

But the Republicans held firm and the administration came up with the idea for the sequester. (Despite the claim that it's a Republican sequester, it was Gene Sperling - the head of the White House Economic Council - who came up with it and pushed it, before deciding after the fact that he didn't like it.)

Anyway, Republicans said no, pointing out history: every time we do one of these deals, the tax hikes take effect immediately, whereas the spending cuts are always for some time in the future and never actually happen.

Well, sure enough, the regime wants to end the sequester. Just imagine if we had agreed to have tax hikes. We would be left with the tax increases and no budget cuts.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why agreeing with tax hikes is a very bad idea. It doesn't matter what the deal says - whatever you get in return for the tax hikes will go away, but the higher taxes are here forever.

That's nothing new. How do you think we got the 16th amendment? (Hint: in a deal to reduce tariffs and shift the tax burden. Guess how long the reduced tariffs lasted?)