Anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal's editorial page knows that it hates the value-added tax. I don't mean hate the way it hates liberals, government regulators and the capital gains tax. No, the Journal hates the VAT more deeply and strenuously than anything else.

The reason is that the Journal sees the VAT as the essential fuel of the welfare state. Without it a European-style welfare state cannot exist. Therefore, if you hate the welfare state--as the Journal does--you must oppose the VAT with every fiber of your being. No fooling around; the VAT means Armageddon, the end of America as we know it and victory for welfare state liberalism. If we impose a VAT we will all soon be cheese-eating surrender monkeys just like the French.

The problem with the Journal's hatred of the VAT is that it also embraces consumption-based taxation. Under a pure consumption tax there would essentially be no taxes on the returns to capital--no taxes on interest, dividends or capital gains.

After President Obama visited their conference last week and took questions from them, Republicans have become very keen on institutionalizing the event the way it is in Britain, where the prime minister routinely takes questions from the opposition in Parliament.

It appears to me that Republicans are simply looking to save face from having believed their own propaganda about Obama's inability to speak without a teleprompter. Also, it's standard debating technique for underdogs to be elevated by being granted a debate with the leader. The debate makes both appear equal and the challenger has less to lose than the leader.

Nevertheless, I think Republicans are being short-sighted in their demands. Would they really have wanted the grossly inarticulate George W. Bush to have had to take questions regularly from Democrats in Congress? I think not.

Moreover, the dismal quality of presidential news conferences does not lead me to think that much useful information will be gleaned from question time with members of Congress. They will just ask "gotcha" questions or about obscure issues that are only of interest to them.

I can only conclude from this new poll of 2003 self-identified Republicans nationwide that between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  While Capital Gains and Games welcomes active debate, this particular comment thread has now been closed. We encourage you to weigh in on the issues raised in other, more-recent posts.

In my previous post I said that Tim Pawlenty's proposal for a balanced budget amendment while supporting more tax cuts and refusing to propose any cuts in spending was too phony even for the right wing tea party/Fox News (TPFN) crowd.

The consensus of opinion based on comments to this post as well as those of other bloggers has convinced me that I am wrong. (See here, here, here, and here.) There's no one too phony for this crowd to glom on to. (See Palin, Sarah, and Beck, Glenn.)

I hereby concede error. I allowed wishful thinking to get the better of me.

In my Forbes column this morning I explain why I don't think Barack Obama is an ideologue, but rather a goo-goo (good government type), which is okay but places a special burden on him to explain everything he does, something I don't think he's done nearly well enough. I also suggest that his biggest mistake was continuing too many of George W. Bush's policies.

Yesterday, the citizens of Oregon ratified a large tax increase on corporations and the wealthy. The top personal income tax rate will rise by two percentage points and the minimum tax on corporations will also rise, including a new tax even on those with no profits to report, according to a Wall Street Journal report. According to Tax Foundation data, this would make the top rate in Oregon 13 percent

This vote is considered a bellwether because the state has previously been supportive of tax limitation measures. Also, it appears that populist anger, which has previously been channeled toward the anti-tax tea party movement, may have the potential to swing in the other direction when people are faced with cuts in programs with wide support.

I can easily see many tea party goers becoming rabid tax-the-rich folks if the alternative is higher taxes on them.

As I wrote the other day, I have always been lukewarm to the idea of a budget commission because I don't think we are ready, politically or economically, for serious deficit reduction. I also have problems with the way the proposed commission would be structured--requiring a supermajority for every recommendation seems like a recipe for gridlock.

That said, I have just been appalled by idiocy of the arguments against the commission that appear to have won the day in the Senate. In particular, the idea that revenues should be completely off the table is simply insane. And the idea that Social Security should be completely off limits is only slightly less crazy.

Every serious budget analyst--I mean every--knows that revenues must be part of the solution to our deficit problem.