Vin Suprynowicz

This year’s insurgent class of freshmen Republican congressfolk were elected in large measure based on their pledge to reduce federal spending by $100 billion.

The question — leaving aside for the moment whether a trim of that modest proportion would sufficiently rein in the tax-and-regulatory state to produce a substantial economic rebound — is whether voters who embraced that pledge really mean it and will stand behind lawmakers who really try.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a member of the Republican leadership, calls it the “$64,000 question,” and then promptly answers it: “People will be supportive of almost any decreases in spending as long as they believe they’re done in an open, equitable and fair manner.”

In an Associated Press-CNBC survey last November, shortly after Republicans scored large gains in the midterm elections, 87 percent of those polled said record federal deficits were likely to cause a major economic crisis over the next decade. Nearly as many — 85 percent — said the cost of financing the federal debt would cause problems for their children or grandchildren.

But only a tiny plurality — 47 percent — said cutting spending should be a higher priority than INCREASING federal spending on schools, health care and “alternative” energy development, extra-constitutional spending schemes which were backed by a nearly identical 46 percent.

And in a CNN survey last month, those questioned said by an 81-18 margin it was more important to prevent significant cuts to Medicare than to reduce the deficit. For Social Security, the split was 78-21 AGAINST budget cuts.

If voters think the bloated central government can be substantially trimmed by taking the nail clippers to the Teapot Museum and the Tea Taster’s Board, without touching the vast, so-called “entitlement” Ponzi schemes of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, it’s possible the elementary school math teachers are having even less success than we feared.

As work begins this week on a bill to keep the government in operation after March 4, but at a level $35 billion lower than enacted for last year, new Republicans, many backed by “tea party” supporters, continue to sharpen their scythes.

“I think people, even in government in my local communities, are saying, ‘Yeah, we get it. We understand. We have to do something,” says Rep. Sean Duffy, elected to the Wisconsin seat long held by Democrat David Obey, who was chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over spending on domestic programs.

“I don’t feel there’s a backlash even in the district that had the benefit of David Obey’s earmarks,” Rep. Duffy adds.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas agrees, saying in the Republican’s weekly radio and Internet address: “In order to get Americans back to work and create jobs, there is no limit to the amount of spending that we’re going to be willing to cut.”

Unfortunately, even assuming they’re serious, the “tea party” insurgents may soon discover even the current GOP leadership has little intention of substantially reducing overall federal spending this year, if ever.

The Treasury Department has said Congress will need to raise its borrowing authority this spring, to facilitate higher spending including interest payments. The Associated Press reports Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republican leaders have already said they intend to “use that as leverage to force a series of changes in government spending habits.”

In other words, whereas the Republican House majority have the power to bar further deficit spending by simply voting “No” on any attempt to raise the “debt ceiling,” they instead plan to vote to authorize borrowing above current levels, in exchange for mere promises to do better, later.

Why? No spending bill can originate anywhere but in the Republican House. Who can make Republicans spend more than they wish? If federal spending were slashed by 40 percent his year (eliminating the projected $1.42 trillion deficit), we’d still have a central government no smaller than under the administration of George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s – as approved by a Democratic Congress.

Were old people starving in the streets in the late 1980s? Were our children any less literate?

The trump card of the big spenders is to threaten a government shutdown.

Such “shutdowns” are largely for show, of course. When Speaker Newt Gingrich attempted to cut spending in 1995 – back before the problem was nearly as serious as it is today – President Bill Clinton cleverly closed national parks and monuments to tourists, using the “shutdown” to depict the 1995 Republicans as irresponsible radicals – though there’s no evidence a single Navy ship drifted helpless for lack of fuel, that a single federal prisoner wandered loose when prison guards walked away and left the cell doors open, that a single federal employee suffered a net loss of income that year.

If Republicans are serious, they should quickly enact legislation declaring that, in the event Democrats refuse to cooperate with a much-reduced federal government, instead threatening another “shutdown,” the Internal Revenue Service is instructed to neither levy nor accept any tax payments for the period of time the government is “shut down,” either then or retroactively.

Make the big spenders “threaten” Americans with a tax holiday, during which we’re free to earn what we like, inherit what we can, realize any capital gains we please, safe in the knowledge we’ll never have to pay a penny in federal taxes on those transactions, ever.

Oh, please, Br’er Fox: Please don’t throw us in that briar patch.