Republicans softening on taxes? Only if Social Security and Medicare are cut

Is this election year posturing, or Republicans thinking they've got a real opportunity to begin chipping away at the New Deal? Politico is reporting that some Republicans are making noises about finally, maybe, bucking Grover Norquist. But they want blood in return, a la Bowles-Simpson, and what they're talking about might not really be real tax increases.

Interviews with more than a dozen Senate Republicans show a growing openness to higher tax revenues to reach a so-called grand bargain on overhauling Medicare, other entitlements, discretionary spending and the Tax Code. On top of that, a small group of House GOP freshmen are balking at conservative activist Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, while six Republican senators recently declined to sign a GOP letter calling for the immediate extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. [...]

'Nobody wants to raise taxes, but the question is can you lower tax rates, lower loopholes and deductions and apply that to debt reduction? I think the answer is yes,' said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). 'If our position is every time you eliminated deductions and exemptions, all of it has to go to bring down rates, how do you pay off the debt?' [...]

'I think it's the type of platform that we have to look at: It looks at spending; it looks at revenues; it looks at entitlements,' said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

'I think there are revenues that are available out there that we ought to be taking a look at,' such as tax breaks for oil companies, said Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.)

For his part, Norquist isn't worried. 'I don't lie awake at night thinking any of these characters are going to vote for a tax increase. [...] The leadership is not going to bring it up. All but six Republicans in the House have signed the pledge and they have a 25-vote margin. It's a moot point.'

But should we be worried on the other side? To the extent that Bowles-Simpson is becoming some kind of rallying point on both sides of the aisle in both chambers of Congress, yes. A lot of mischief could be done by a lame-duck Congress, when the public isn't paying much attention and the next vote is two years away. Negotiating big benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare for a few closed loopholes is not any kind of bargain.