Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Says Republicans Are 'Finished' Raising Taxes, Demands Spending Cuts

Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday that Republicans are done with any talk of raising taxes, after the fiscal cliff compromise. He's also reserving judgment on Chuck Hagel's Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense.

McConnell appeared on no less than three Sunday news shows to drive home the point that Republicans have done all the compromising they're going to do when it comes to tax hikes, and that any budget balancing the president wants is going to have to come from spending cuts.

"The tax issue is finished. Over. Completed. That's behind us," McConnell said on ABC's "This Week."

Even though Senate Republicans lost two seats in last year's election, with 55 seats Democrats still don't have a majority that can withstand a filibuster, so McConnell can make good on his promise.

That's assuming President Obama doesn't apply the screw over sequestration, which is still hanging over everyone's heads.

Since the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts don't affect Social Security or Medicare and disproportionately affect the military, Republicans are loathe to let it come to pass.

But it's unlikely Republicans would raise taxes to prevent spending cuts, even if it is to one of their typically sacred cows.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, second to Harry Reid among the Democrats, said more revenue can still be gained through "deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code."

Or as Mitt Romney used to put it, "closing loopholes."

Whether Republicans will go for it remains to be seen. It sounded like a good idea when the alternative was raising taxes, but now that that's already been done, maybe not.

McConnell has left a little wriggle room. Increased revenue through a reform of the tax code and the elimination of deductions might be alright with him if it's accompanied by equivalent cuts to social programs, and Obama has signaled his willingness to look at substantial cuts to entitlements, so that way may lead the compromise everyone says they are looking for.