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"Now let’s look at means-tested welfare programs, both using Voegeli’s numbers and figures from the Cato Institute for the period 1965 to 2009. In Voegeli’s calculation, welfare spending jumped by 583 percent. In fact, he said, the welfare state grew from 26 percent of federal outlays in 1965 to 61 percent in 2008.

Using the Cato Institute’s figures from an April 2012 report, federal spending on welfare and anti-poverty programs increased from $178 billion in 1965 to $668 billion in 2009, a 375-percent increase in constant dollars, while total welfare spending – including state and local – rose from $256 billion to $908 billion. On a per capita basis, Cato reported, federal welfare spending jumped by more than 900 percent, from $1,625 to $14,848.

Choose your poison; either number is astonishing. The sad part is, one can debate whether we are more secure, but the poverty rate in 2009 – and today – stands where it did in 1965. Despite a massive infusion of cash, relentlessly growing the welfare state hasn’t worked as a matter of national policy. The nation lost the War on Poverty."

One of the big problems I see in this discussion is that the people who are against tax increases don't spell out where the spending problems really are. After reading diatribe after diatribe, I think I'm starting to see the shape of the failure cascade:

The cost of doing business continues to rise by the imposition of regulations by the Federal government; how many of those regulations are really necessary?
The cost of medicine continues to rise because the lawyers do after-the-fact analysis and assignment of liability; he-said she-said dueling experts don't help, either
The body of law continues to grow and grow, so "experts", not the writers of law, need to interpret the law itself, not to mention applying the law to specific situations
The tax code has grown to the point that an "expert" consists of a group of people, all specialists in specific sections of the Code.
As a consequence, businesses tend to shy away from expanding, which means they need fewer employees.
Profit-sharing is discouraged by the tax code, so employees tend not to share in the success of their hard work -- if you want more money in the hands of a wider base, provide some tax advantages for giving "bonuses" to everyone, not just management
Too many tax deductions that fulfill social objectives, and/or require the army of "experts" to understand

The first priority should be to remove the barriers put up by government that discourage employment. Look what is happening with Obamacare: companies are, where possible, converting employees part-time to reduce the costs of regulation. Is that what Pelosi wanted? What Reid wanted?

The fact that the Democrats don't see the failure cascade says to me that this is what they want. If they really cared about the unemployed, about getting people who want to work back to work, they would fix the root cause of the problems, not just throw more money at idle people.

I don't blame the idle people -- you can't grow crops on rocks.

Federal revenue never* exceeds 20% of GDP.
We’re at about 19%.
That means the most the Obama can expect to squeeze out of the economy at this point is about $0.15T. We need at least ten times that, leaving the only solution either spending cuts or asset sales.

* - it has a couple times, promptly followed by a serious drop.

To me, the GOP’s task in all of this ought to be very simple: never vote for a tax increase on anyone. Let the Democrats worry about how to protect their precious spending programs without new taxes. Don’t let them make the GOP look like the big bad meanies who want to push Grandma off the cliff by cutting her Medicare and Social Security. Those are Democrat programs, and they should always be the responsible party for any problems that arise within them. The GOP is the party of low taxes; there’s nothing to be gained from messing with that brand in order to “save” the Democrats’ precious social programs, which will ultimately fail no matter what anyone does.