Mr Obama’s short-term deal makes it more likely that the long-term equilibration of income and outgoings will be done on Republican terms. ~Christopher Caldwell

This is certainly what many Democrats fear, but this seems to be a case of Democrats’ putting more faith in conservative “starve the beast” rhetoric than many conservatives actually do. I noticed that Jim Pinkerton was recently insisting that this was the real reason why Republicans support the tax deal, but I doubt that they really believe this. My impression is that this is the line Republicans always use to reconcile their refusal to control spending with their professed interest in keeping spending under control. In practice, the beast never starves. The beast simply starts devouring the wealth of future generations. This is the result of the very American and extremely un-conservative conviction that we can have it all, which means that we don’t need to make any serious trade-offs.

Caldwell argues that the deal will increase pressure for deficit reduction, and presumably we are supposed to believe that deficit reduction on “Republican terms” implies drastic spending cuts. If that were the case, liberal dissatisfaction with the deal would seem even more reasonable, and any conservative opposition to the deal would seem short-sighted, but this is not what will happen. As Caldwell outlines very well, the tax deal is an embodiment of “centrist” and bipartisan government at its worst:

The two parties have connived to kick every single difficult budget decision down the road. They have collaborated only to give away money. If this were part one of a larger plan to get the country’s fiscal house in order, it might be welcomed. But it is an exercise in wishful thinking. It damps hopes that America can reform before the markets bring it to heel.

As the leaders of both parties have made clear in the last few months, sacrificing anything significant for the sake of fiscal responsibility is out of the question right now. The new guardians of the sanctity of Medicare in the Republican leadership are not going to throw away the advantage among elderly voters they have acquired by hinting at anything that might appear to threaten Social Security or Medicare. Trusting in newly-elected members of Congress to change this will most likely lead to disappointment. To take one example, Marco Rubio is not going to start speaking truth to the power of retirees. If we put aside their campaign rhetoric, we can see that the party of insolvency has no interest in austerity budgets. As the tax deal has shown, no amount of establishment consensus or elite panic about debt will force political leaders to stop expanding the deficit at every opportunity. If it comes to a point where the fiscal imbalance absolutely cannot be ignored any longer, it will be relatively easier to raise taxes than it will be to reform entitlements. It won’t be very popular, but it will only be after this that entitlement reform becomes politically possible as the public begins to identify what the real cost of government services is. Starving the beast doesn’t work, and in all likelihood it creates all the wrong incentives if the goal is to reduce the size and scope of government.