Written By : John Hawkins

Despite the fact that the Democrats want to actually increase spending right now, the GOP has been earnestly trying to get them to reduce spending in exchange for raising the debt limit. As you can imagine, that’s probably a difficult task that involves hours per day of basic economics, explaining the negatives of just printing unlimited money, and pretending not to detest Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi for whole days. In other words, it’s a difficult, thankless task, comparable to teaching yappy, incontinent French poodles to stop trying to sniff each other’s behinds.

The newest Democratic ploy in the effort to keep the spending binge going is demanding that the GOP raise taxes.

Negotiations collapsed Thursday when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, walked out after complaining that Democrats refused to budge on their demand for tax increases. Mr. Kyl, the only other Republican member of the Biden panel, quickly followed suit, essentially rendering the group dead.

Democrats and the White House have accused Republicans of falsely suggesting that they want to raise taxes on average Americans. Rather, Democrats say, they want to close certain tax “loopholes” for wealthy corporations.

“How do you call closing loopholes to oil companies that are making billions of dollars in profits … how do you call that a tax hike?” Rep. James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”“I don’t know of anybody who would define a tax increase as closing the loophole.”

Because Republicans aren’t known as the stupid party for nothing, let me just remind them that we’ve seen this movie before and we know exactly how it will play out.

Remember George Bush, Sr.? Sure you do. He was the guy who said, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” Then the Democrats absolutely demanded that he raise taxes.

Eventually, he caved.

His reward? He got a few inconsequential newspaper articles praising him for “compromise” and then the Democrats absolutely slaughtered him with his own hypocrisy.

In other words, not only is raising taxes right now really bad policy, not only will it aggravate the GOP base, but the Democrats will turn right around and use the GOP’s capitulation as a campaign issue. Hell, BILL CLINTON even used it in ads against Bush.

Nobody wants the US to default, but if this country is going to survive financially over the long-term without going bankrupt, we’ve got to cut spending significantly. The potential of a default with Obama at the helm gives the GOP the leverage to force the Democrats to actually cut spending for once. They should use it and be smart enough to recognize the trap Democrats are setting up for them on tax increases.

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