I'm seeing nascent signs of a new (but actually old) fallacy, namely that since health care costs can (will?) crush the budget, we don't have to worry so much about other expenditures. The mental story runs something like this: "if we don't cure health care cost inflation, it doesn't matter; if we do cure health care cost inflation, we can afford it." That's exactly the kind of false mental framing that behavioral economics identifies as irrational in other settings.

via Marginal Revolution.

Tyler, too, fears increased taxes -- but via something like a consumption tax (or value-added tax) *in addition to* the existing Federal taxes.

And people wonder why the Tea Party movement strikes such a chord.