These arguments – the very core of conservative thinking – continue to make sense even to tens of millions of those who never expect to make their way into Pelosi’s target category of the guilty rich.

And what can we learn from the current political mess in Washington? Three quick lessons:

1- There really is a big difference between Republicans and Democrats. Forget all the whining (going back to notorious Democratic demagogue George Wallace) about “not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties”, about “Republi-crats” and “Dem-icans” counting as interchangeable: within one week of Democratic takeover, the leadership of both House and Senate is talking about tax increases. In the twelve prior years of Republican rule no major leader of either GOP-controlled house of Congress talked about jacking up tax rates. If that doesn’t demonstrate the unbridgeable chasm between the two parties, nothing will.

2- Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, Republicans are unmistakably motivated by concern for the public good rather than efforts to protect their own bank accounts. Only a tiny percentage of GOP leaders, activists, volunteers, or talk show hosts would suffer by a tax increase limited to incomes above $500,000—yet Republican opposition to these increases is nearly unanimous.

Why? Because we care about our ideals and our vision for the nation (a vision of minimal government and maximal freedom) more than we care about our own bottom lines.

3- The biggest issue with the tax system should be tax simplification, not increasing or even decreasing rates. Tax debates always sound confusing to the American people because they are—the IRS Code, with its multitude of loopholes, mountainous volumes of regulations, Alternative Minimum Taxes, differential rates for capital gains and ordinary income, FICA, payroll deductions, earned income tax credits, and so forth, is vastly more complex than it needs to be. Each one of the regulations and special programs and specific obligations represents some governmental attempt to take tell people what to do and how to live, to expand the power of bureaucrats into every intimate corner of our homes and places of work. Republicans will begin to rebuild our majorities by emphasizing RADICAL, corruption-reducing tax simplification (either a Fair Tax on Consumption or a Flat Tax on Income) rather than merely reduced rates.

Unfortunately, the needed efforts at heroic reform – like Hercules himself cleaning out the stinking, wretched, filth-encrusted Augean Stables – must wait until Pelosi’s instinctive passion to raise rates has run its course and the GOP regains its majority. Meanwhile, we can only hope that in terms of fighting once again on this particular battlefield we can re-unify our dispirited troops and regain the clear voice of Reaganism. It’s a new year and a new struggle, and it may yet produce new energy and fresh hope.