Incoming Ways & Means Chair: 'Let me be clear that Washington doesn't have a revenue problem.' - If this thinking prevails, the country is in trouble.

From an editorial in The Washington Post:

There is no sensible solution to the debt problem that does not include both spending cuts and revenue increases.

[W]hy is Mr. Obama, having appointed the debt commission, proposing a permanent extension of the tax cuts for households making under $250,000 a year? "Now, this is actually an area where Democrats and Republicans agree," he said in Indiana on Tuesday. "The only place where we disagree is whether we can afford to also borrow $700 billion to pay for an extra tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, for millionaires and billionaires. I don't think we can afford it right now - not when we are going to have to make some tough decisions to rein in our deficits." Missing from Mr. Obama's analysis: any explanation of how we can afford to borrow more than $2 trillion to pay for making the rest of the tax cut permanent.

But the administration's arguments look reasonable in comparison to the official Republican mantra: The Bush tax cuts must be extended, in their entirety. "Some have suggested that getting our deficit under control will take both spending cuts and more tax increases," Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said in a speech to a tax policy group this month. "Let me be clear in saying that Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem." If that ends up being the Republicans' last word, the country is in trouble.