When we hear about “tax cuts”, the Democrats cringe. This has always been the strong hold for Republicans in campaign issues, but that issue may be losing strength:

Support for tax cuts — a signature campaign issue for congressional Republicans — is waning on Capitol Hill, with the GOP-led Congress reaching its Independence Day recess with no tax-trimming victories to tout in home districts.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist last week was forced to withdraw a measure to cut the estate tax, which foes derisively call the “death tax,” because there was not enough support for it.

Income tax cuts and credits — including an expansion of the very popular child tax credit — are still due to expire at the end of the decade, but Congress has not been able to agree on a proposal to make them permanent. Congress also has failed to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was meant to target wealthy people but which is increasingly encroaching on middle-class Americans.

Some lawmakers said their constituents, who once clamored for tax cuts, have recently begun quizzing them about the deficit and questioning whether the tax cuts were doing more for wealthier Americans than the middle class.

Senator Olympia Snowe , Republican of Maine and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said proposals both to eliminate the estate tax and cut taxes on capital gains and dividends would help the wealthy, a fact that more of her constituents seem to emphasize as she campaigns for a third term.

Should it be any shock? Look at the past few presidencies, which can be picked out in this chart:

You get a Republican in office and the deficit grows rapidly, a Democrat comes in and it goes green, just so another Republican can come in and send it back into the red.

So what does this mean? Most likely we will get a Democrat for President in 2008 who will have to either raise taxes or not do any tax cuts. This will of course help eliminate the deficit but then Republicans will start doing the “tax cut” chants to win the White House back. Hopefully by that time, history will be a strong enough judge and Democrats will be able to remind voters what tax cuts mean. As it stands right now our children and grandchildren will be paying off our expenses for a very long time.