I think you have a good point about the psychological aspect. In that same vein, I'm gonna explain the psychology of the Tea Party right-wing.
But first, the agreement is not "no revenue increases, at all, ever." There is going to be the Supercongress committee negotiations about $1.4 trillion of it, and they are not explicitly banned from raising revenues to reduce the deficit. It's unlikely that there will be tax revenue increases, but the possibility remains. And now, on to the psychology of spending-cutters.
In 1980, Reagan runs on a platform of smaller government and standing up to the Soviet Union. He wins, and immediately starts pushing for tax and spending cuts. Negotiations on spending cuts break down when Democrats refuse to cut non-defense spending without also cutting defense spending, and defense spending is kinda important during the cold war. Republicans, reasoning that without tax revenue "the beast" will eventually be "starved" into conceding some spending cuts, agree to defer spending cuts to a later negotiation and pass the tax cuts now, and The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 is passed.
The next year, another attempt is made. The resulting Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 includes some tax cuts and reforms, but the promised spending cuts do not materialize. Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 includes tax reform, but Republicans didn't get spending cuts. COBRA is passed in 1986, which includes tax reform and non-defense spending
increases. Tax Reform Act of 1986 includes tax cuts, but again Republicans can't get spending cuts.
This repeats over and over again through the 80s, 90s, and the Bush Administration. The only significant spending cuts in those three decades are the defense spending cuts that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they were offset by non-defense spending increases and, later, by the Bush Administration restoring the lost defense spending. Even when Republicans controlled both legislative houses and the White House early in the Bush administration, there were still no spending cuts. Then the financial crisis cues for change, and the spending cut advocates abandon the label "Republican," the party of false hope, and adopt the name "Tea Party." They get elected in 2010, and in their first major budget negotiation everyone is on their case for refusing tax increases and being inflexible. They laugh at the irony, stick to their guns, and pass the second major spending cut in 40 years.
Now, understand that I didn't research this deeply. This is a psychological argument, intended to describe how the Tea Party feels about the situation, and I haven't fact-checked it against 40 years of legislative history. I have checked the history of US federal spending, and the only actual reduction in annual spending since the 50s was in 2010; federal spending increased half a trillion in 2009 (double the previous record increase), then dropped by 60 billion in 2010. Except for that one instance, spending has been a sacred cow since the mid-50s. It is yet to be seen if even this behemoth spending cut will actually result in lower total spending in the second of any two consecutive years; it only cuts $7 billion by 2012, so it won't any time soon. And the debt agencies are saying we still need to cut other $1.6 trillion out of the projected debt before 2020 to guarantee we retain our AAA credit rating.
From that point of view, one that has my deep empathy, calling Republicans or Tea Party folks or conservatives inflexible is a laughable abuse of the English language and of common sense. The Republicans have compromised themselves so much as to nearly discredit the party, and the inflexibility is in the hands of the perpetual spendthrifts who have barred non-defense spending cuts time after time regardless of all concerns of promises, duty, or consequence for half a century. It is ridiculous to compare that epoch of stasis to a single inflexible negotiation and denounce the perpetrators of the latter without far more adamantly denouncing the perpetrators of the former.
Nancy Pelosi calls the debt deal a "
Satan Sandwich With Satan Fries On The Side." Calling that ridiculous is not radical.
CKA Elite 
