If Congressional Republicans want to know why people call politics the “second oldest profession” and view politicians with similar regard to used car salesmen, they need only look at the new mantra of Republican super committee members: “We will not raise your taxes as much as the other guys.” Congressional Republicans, who railed against President Obama for raising a trillion dollars of new taxes in the Obamacare legislation and professed that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is the surest way to prolong it, have pledged to raise half a trillion dollars in new taxes as their opening gambit in the super committee negotiations.
Congressional Republicans who refused to be sucked into the Marxist rhetoric of President Obama and the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd by voting down tax increases on millionaires and billionaires, have proposed raising taxes on families and small businesses making a fraction of that amount. Congressional Republicans who reminded us that we have a “spending problem” and not a “revenue problem” have thrown their lot in with Congressional Democrats. These Democrats mocked Republican Presidential candidates for refusing to accept a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases while being unwilling to accept the recommendation of the President’s blue ribbon commission when it proposed a 4:1 ratio of tax cuts to spending increases. While this is terrible economic policy, the political implications for Congressional Republicans and the Republican Presidential candidate are even worse.

