For Politico, David Rogers and Manu Raju report:
“As White House budget talks enter a crucial week, top Senate Republicans are redoubling their efforts to keep revenues out of the mix — even after voting to end a multi-billion dollar tax expenditure for the ethanol industry last Thursday. Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the chief Senate Republican negotiator, delivered an anti-tax blast on the Senate floor Monday — just a day after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke of settling for a less comprehensive, tax-free deficit-reduction package and kicking the debt ceiling fight over into the fall. Two themes stand out: A skepticism toward the progress being made in the House-Senate talks being led by Vice President Joe Biden, and a push back against those who saw last week’s 73-27 ethanol vote as a sign that Republicans might yet allow some tax revenues to be part of the deficit reduction package."
With August 2nd quickly approaching, negotiations on the debt ceiling are coming down to the wire. Senate Republicans face pressure from the left to make concessions on massive tax increases in return for promised spending cuts.
The budget compromise fiascos of 1982 and 1990 are classic examples of what Congressional Republicans should strive to avoid. In both cases, spending cuts and tax increases were agreed upon, but the spending cuts never materialized. For this reason, all forms of tax increases should be off the table when it comes to confronting the government’s severe overspending problem.
UPDATE:
In The Weekly Standard, Michael Warren writes:
"Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this morning that Congress will not raise taxes this year to reduce the budget deficit, favoring instead a pro-growth agreement as a solution to debt ceiling debate. 'I think I can safely say this Congress is not going to raise taxes,' McConnell said. 'So why are we still talking about this?' McConnell argued that if Congress wanted to raise taxes, the simplest way would be to increase them on those individuals making over a million dollars a year. 'We had that vote in December when there were 59 Democrats in the Senate,' he said. 'Remember, in December, the Democrats had a 40-seat majority in the House, they had 59 Democratic senators, and a guy in the White House who wants to raise taxes. And you had five Democrats vote with us against the Schumer proposal. They could not get a tax increase on people making a million dollars and up in a Congress that they had overwhelming control over last year.'"