As the congressional super committee deliberated throughout the fall, the media got us locked into this notion that if they were unable to come up with an agreed upon plan, this constituted a "failure," while an approved-by-super-committee strategy for curbing the debt constituted a "success." The problem with that thinking is that there was never any indication that suggested they could deliver an intelligent plan, just as there was never any indication that Coca-Cola's attempt to alter its classic recipe in 1985 wouldn't end up as the unalloyed failure that it did. In both cases, what's been deemed a "failure," for all anyone really knows, may have actually been a dodged bullet.

Debating tax policy now is putting the cart before the horse. The real issue is what the government should be doing. Then we can worry about how we should pay for it.