Republicans plan for deficit reduction: eat our seed corn

As Krugman so clearly shows. Republicans are looking to cut programs for nutrition, nuclear nonproliferation, tax enforcement--why? Because they think that cutting anything is better than raising taxes. And why does this sell with their base? People who don't want any more taxes, but also actually don't want these programs cut? Because they are uninformed and have not thought it through.

"And what they’ve been hearing ever since Ronald Reagan is that their hard-earned dollars are going to waste, paying for vast armies of useless bureaucrats (payroll is only 5 percent of federal spending) and welfare queens driving Cadillacs. How can we expect voters to appreciate fiscal reality when politicians consistently misrepresent that reality?"

Which has been my point as well. Republicans have made a cottage industry of bashing government and misleading voters. Now they are in the unenviable situation of having to actually cut programs and not raise taxes. As Bruce Bartlett suggested the other day, this approach comes with real dangers, because when the average American learns that they may have more reliance on government than they realized, they might actually show up in 2012 and vote. Perhaps.