Republicans will be willing to vote for tax hikes…

I like Jim Geraghty’s take on the current no-tax-hike impasse in Congress:

I suspect the default of a lot of conservatives is that they might, someday, be willing to entertain the notion of tax increases if they genuinely believed that lawmakers had made a sustained effort to trim the fat from the federal budget. When Citizens Against Government Waste changes their “Pig Book” to a “Pig Notecard,” they’ll be willing to talk tax hikes.

• When Planned Parenthood is entirely privately funded.
• When any president stops getting the taxpayers to pay for half of his Air Force One travel costs because he throws a "town-hall meeting" stop onto his fundraising tour of another state.
• When Congress accepts a pay cut.
• When former members like Anthony Weiner lose access to the Congressional gym and pay for their own d*mn gym memberships.
• When we tell foreign governments that future deliveries of U.S. aid will be conditional upon their efforts to refute — not shut down or ban, but refute — anti-American propaganda in their country.
• When you cannot find a single bike path in America that is being built with the assistance of the U.S. taxpayer.
• When we stop paying farmers to not farm their land.
• When NPR and PBS are entirely funded by donors, merchandising, and their already-considerable corporate sponsors.
• When federal employees with significant unpaid tax bills have their continued employment contingent upon paying those tax bills.

I’m sure you can come up with many, many more. Also, I think we on the right would want some sort of ironclad, if-we-break-this-pledge-hunt-us-down-with-hounds guarantee in writing that all additional tax revenues would be used to pay down the debt. Over the years, we’ve enacted plenty of tax hikes. We’ve never made a serious effort to control or reduce spending.

While we’re on the subject, specifically NPR and PBS, I just can’t understand why some, mostly libs, refuse even to consider defunding these two. If you suggest that we do so, you’re asked why you hate Elmo? Personally, I don’t hate Elmo (my kids LOVE him), but when you’re faced with such a HUGE deficit, you have to start cutting the fat somewhere. Sure, these two expenditures are a small part of the federal budget, but if I faced a similar deficit (adjusted for scale, of course) in my family budget, you can bet your bottom dollar (har har : ) that Netflix and U-verse TV would be some of the first things to go.

I wouldn’t stop there, of course, but I’d certainly start there. It should be the same with PBS and NPR. Identify what’s non-essential and cut it. For what is essential, see if there’s any fat there and cut it (even if it’s military spending ; ). You can’t just look at some small amount and shrug. A few pennies here and a few pennies there add up to dollars eventually. When there’s no money, there’s no money and tough choices have to be made.