Republicans moving on taxes?
Not really.
National Journal:
Republican leaders and members of the super committee may work to close some tax loopholes in a new proposal they will present to the deficit-reduction panel’s Democrats, GOP sources said on Monday. [...]
Last week, as part of a $2.2 trillion plan, super-committee Republicans proposed shaving $640 billion from the national deficit by increasing fees and Medicare copays. [...]
Now Republicans are willing to consider decoupling loophole closures from an overall tax-code rewrite. Any GOP offer would likely also task committees of jurisdiction with coming up with a revenue-neutral tax-reform plan, said GOP sources familiar with super-committee deliberations. They declined to cite specific tax-code changes or their total value.
That last sentence is important: Unless Republicans offer specifics, including a substantial dollar figure, then their offer is more about positioning themselves to avoid blame for the failure of the super committee than actually reaching an agreement. Of course, this assumes Democrats and and President Obama stick by their pledge to oppose any "one-sided" deals. Here's how President Obama outlined his veto threat in September:
I will not support -- I will not support -- any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share. We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable.
When Republicans rejected the Democratic proposal last week (a proposal that was already too heavily tilted towards hurting the most vulnerable) as having too much in tax increases, they all but guaranteed one of two outcomes: Either the Super Congress will end in failure or that Democrats will capitulate. And even if they end up offering some small movement on tax loopholes, that equation will remain the same.