How do you tackle deficits with only one governing party?

I’ve alluded to this problem in previous posts without explicitly calling it out, but it’s going to incredibly difficult to close our fiscal deficits and pay down our debt when Republicans, whether they be in power or out, do not actually desire that as a goal of governing.  When four fifths or more of our national elected representatives only use the deficit and debt as a red herring, it’s pretty hard to see how any structural reform will get accomplished.  And it’s surely not the case that Republicans will magically implement have policies to structurally improve our country whenever they are again the governing majority. I of course want a segment of this reform to be higher taxes in various forms, but we’ll barely see any new revenue if Republicans always have their way.

In that spirit, I am going to quote Matt Yglesias at length:

To me, the most frustrating element of the conversation in Washington about the long-term budget deficit is that it tends to completely neglect the fact that the conservative movement in American politics doesn’t think deficits are a problem. Progressives and full-time deficit hawks may disagree about exactly how much priority should be put on deficit reduction, but progressives are happy to concede that out-of-control growth in Medicare spending is not sustainable.

Over there [the Cato Institute] you can find Daniel Mitchell publishing things about “The Problem Is Spending, not Deficits”. He’s entitled to his view, of course. But this is the reason why it’s hard to forge a consensus on a balanced plan to reduce the deficit—one of the teams rejects the idea of a balanced plan to reduce the deficit. Forming a special commission isn’t going to change that.