Republicans claim they want smaller government. There is a simple, proven way to accomplish this: make citizens pay for all the government they use. Do this, and you will see the public's appetite for government spending programs decline notably.
This means, of course, higher taxes. And it directly contradicts the Right's notion that "starving the beast", or as St. Reagan put it, "cutting the government's allowance", will be effective in limiting spending. On the contrary, tax cuts actually increase the demand for government services by reducing their apparent cost.
Even the libertarian Cato Institute knows this, as I've written about before.
So if the Right really wanted to reduce spending and cut the deficit, they'd be pushing tax increases. But as we know, all they really care about is keeping taxes low for the rich. Which is something that a large majority of Americans oppose.
Democrats should be a lot more aggressive in making this point.