You know, David Brooks is right: It is a bit sneaky to fund an expansion in S-CHIP by raising taxes on smokers. It should come out of general revenues, and if a tax raise is necessary, so be it. But the causal mechanism Brooks offers for this political cowardice is general in the extreme: "[Raising taxes] is honest and direct, and therefore impermissible."
No. Brooks' political movement, the Republican Party, has spent the last thirty years engaged in such ceaseless, anti-tax demagoguery, has spent so much time convincing Americans that they can pay for new programs by cutting taxes, has been so effective at ripping apart politicians who voted for tax increases, has been so disingenuous about relying on the deficit to avoid cutting spending, that politicians can't be honest about raising revenues, because they will be defeated by demagogues the moment they try.
If Brooks wants to write a column calling for more honesty in tax arguments, that's a column -- hell, that's a book -- about the sublime fiscal ad political irresponsibility of the Republican Party in recent decades. And having that column or book written by David Brooks would actually be quite meaningful. But this column, in which some vague allergy to honesty afflicts Washington, is not meaningful at all. It is not even an attempt to spread blame. It's an attack on the Democrats for playing by the rules the Republicans have set-up, rules that Brooks and many others have helped abet.
