The problem with taking the need for spending cuts as a given, is that as soon as you provide our legislators (any legislators, really) with income, they stop working on spending cuts and start working on ways to spend the new revenue. It's the camel's nose in the tent. Today it's 1.5%, tomorrow it's 6%, next year it's 15% and in a decade it's 30%. That's the history of taxation in the United States. Federal income tax was supposed to be a small tax on people who could afford it, but now it's a large tax on people who work for a living. Yeah, yeah, I know, you think that 15-30% is perfectly reasonable ... so long as you're in the 47% of the population that gets all the money back and more in refunds and credits.