“At this point,” Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Slate‘s David Weigel after a closed door House Republican conference meeting yesterday morning, “rates are going up for everybody.” Lankford is right. Taxes are scheduled to rise by $4.6 trillion starting January 1st. But that is just one reality that all conservatives should consider when weighing the ‘Plan B’ proposal Speaker John Boehner’s, R-Ohio, unveiled yesterday.

The other reality many conveniently forget to mention is that spending is also set to be cut by $1.2 trillion. Boehner’s Plan B leaves those very real spending cuts untouched. Any deal with Obama would start by undoing the scheduled $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. Already, that is $1.2 trillion in the direction of bloated government. Plus, any deal with Obama would include far greater tax hikes than Plan B would allow, at minimum about $600 billion more. That is a total of $1.8 trillion in bigger government. How could any Republican defend that vote to their conservative constituents? Plus Plan B doesn’t raise the debt limit either. Republicans can then use that to try and restructure the sequester into meaningful entitlement reform later this year.