I am constantly amazed at how naive mainstream, even insightful political writers are. This morning, Jonathan Chait made a big deal of the fact that Eric Cantor said “we’ll see about additional taxes” after being asked if he would consider taxes if Obama showed he was “serious” about the budget deficit. Of course, even Chait notes that Cantor immediately went back on his statement. But somehow, for Chait, Cantor’s statement seems to be telling, as though Cantor is really willing to accept new taxes and that his “no taxes” pledge is just a bargaining stance.
Bull Pucky!
What Cantor said was no kind of gaff. Republicans are forever claiming that they will raise taxes under the right circumstances. It is just that the Democrats are never “serious” enough for them to consider raising taxes. Even the White House has fallen for this. Remember their recent charm offensive where Obama was meeting with Republicans and showing them, “We really will fuck the poor and middle classes if you’ll just give us a few pennies from the rich.” The point that the White House and commenters like Chait don’t seem to get is that Republicans are always reasonable in the theoretical case of the Democrats offering them something that they know the Democrats will never offer them.
Of course, they make mistakes. Remember the unnamed Republican legislator who Ezra Klein introduced us to? He didn’t know that Obama had offered Social Security cuts. As I reported at the time:
Of course, Klein responded to this with another moderate’s Hallelujah Chorus, “See the Republicans aren’t intransigent; they’re just ignorant!” But they aren’t. Well, they are ignorant. But it doesn’t matter, because they are by definition intransigent. I’m sure that unnamed Republican legislator has since come up with other requirements before he can say of Obama, “That’s serious!”
The Democrats move more and more to the right, but this only causes the Republicans to move more and more to the right so that the two parties are no closer together. How long can this go on before otherwise smart political observers like Chait and Klein see that there really isn’t a reasonable party hidden inside the modern Republicans? Maybe after they control the White House and Congress, they will become a bit more reasonable. But for now, we need to stop reading the tea leaves. The Republicans are against any proposal by the Democrats because it is a proposal by the Democrats. The one thing that works against this is actual leverage. I would have thought that everyone would understand that by now.
