The Hill News

The December tax cut deal showed that Democrats and Republicans can cooperate in giving out candy. Now they face the tougher challenge of cooperating to pay the mortgage on the candy store. Republicans don’t want to raise any taxes. Democrats don’t want to admit that mandatory spending is on an unsustainable path. Few members of Congress will say it yet, but leaders from both parties who have studied the budget know that both tax increases and painful cuts in defense spending and entitlements are inevitable.

Right now, Congress is dancing on the head of the 2011 budget pin, focusing only on non-defense discretionary spending. But really getting control of the federal government budget is going to take place in 2012 and beyond, when leaders actually start looking at the other 86% of the budget.

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