If this is true, it is a political gift of unimaginable magnitude to Republicans. After all, everyone from President Obama down has conceded that times of economic stress (like recessions) are a terrible time to raise taxes. That's because you're requiring job-creators to pay to the government the money they might otherwise plow back into their companies and use to hire people. And as a recent poll noted, a majority of Americans wants tax cuts for everyone -- yes, even the dreaded "wealthy."
And now, Senator Murray is calling for a massive "automatic" tax increase on everyone (with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts) so that restoring the current rates on those making less than $250,000 would be a "tax cut"! Get it?!
The only worrisome part of this story is the aside that Democrats are "[e]mboldened by signs that GOP resistance to new taxes may be weakening." One reason that I suspect it's just big talk: There's no source (even an anonymous one) for it.
Another reason it had better be nothing but Democrat wishful thinking: Any accession to new taxes would be the GOP signing its own political death warrant. It would be another "read my lips" disaster of epic proportion -- and a total repudiation of the low tax, high growth economic approach that has been a staple of mainstream GOP thought since a least the time of Reagan.
I'm guest hosting The Hugh Hewitt Show tomorrow, and we're going to try to find some Republican officials who can dispositively repudiate this hair-raising rumor that the GOP would cave in any way on tax increases.