Josh Barro searches for the source of Republican anti-tax ideology:
The “we’re broke” mindset simultaneously explains what might seem like a paradox of conservative thinking today: federal deficits are alarming and unsustainable, undermining our national credit, and yet we should not think about raising taxes.
If you have a bad-but-fixable debt problem, tax increases are a logical part of the austerity package to get you on the road to health. Just look at any country in Europe that’s actually implementing an austerity plan. But if things are already too far gone to fix, if we’re really broke, why bother raising taxes? That’s just more money down the hole. Conveniently, this position allows Republicans to conclude that alarming deficits are cause for spending cuts, but not for tax increases.
The Dish 