Ezra Klein writes, “‘We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem,’ Republicans say. If the federal government defaults on Aug. 2, that sentence will be to blame. What a shame, then, that the sentence is entirely, obviously, wrong. ‘I’m an ‘and’ guy, not an ‘or’ guy,’ says Donald Marron, who served as an economist in George W. Bush’s White House and now leads the Brookings/Urban Tax Policy Center. If you look at the numbers, it’s easy to see why economists like Marron think we have both a spending problem and a taxing problem. In 2001, revenues were at 19.5 percent of gross domestic product and spending was at 18.6 percent of GDP. That was our surplus. In 2010, revenues were at 14.9 percent of GDP while spending was at 23.9 percent. That’s our deficit: Revenues are down and spending is up. It’s ‘and,’ not ‘or.’”