Does government spending get flushed down a toilet?

Greg Mankiw offers his thoughts on Obama's proposed bipartisan fiscal commission:

[W]hat if you are [a] conservative [on the fiscal commission]? This is harder. You can try to stick to your no-tax-increase position. The problem is that doing so would require spending cuts larger than are politically realistic. If I were king, I bet I could find sufficient spending cuts. But I am not expecting to be anointed any time soon. If the fiscal commission is going to succeed, tax increases will have to be part of the deal.

Already Mankiw reveals that on some deep level, he believes that a dollar spent by government is a dollar flushed down the toilet.

[L]et's suppose that you are a conservative and you want the fiscal commission to succeed. You will have to agree to higher taxes as part of the bargain. But what should you aim to get in return? Here is my list.

The list includes cuts in Medicare and Social Security, increased use of a value-added tax (which taxes mostly the poor and middle-class) in exchange for corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich, and elimination of the estate tax. In other words, Mankiw wants to increase the total tax burden but decrease the burden on the rich, while cutting benefits for the poor and middle class. He doesn't say why.

One thing is clear: The Democrats in Congress would hate the five demands above. But that is precisely the point. The fiscal commission is giving the Democrats something of very high value: political cover for a major tax hike. If Republicans are going to give them that, they should get something very big in return.

There are so many problems packed into this one tiny paragraph that I almost don't know where to begin. How about:

1. The purpose of crafting policy is to do things that make your political opponents angry? Not, say, improving the state of the nation or strengthening the economy?

2. Does Mankiw really honestly imagine that Democrats want tax increases for their own sake? The Democrats want tax increases in order to increase spending. Mankiw proposes that conservatives allow tax increases, but only on the middle class, in exchange for tax cuts on the rich and cuts in spending on the poor and middle class. And in exchange for that, liberals get...what? The ability to say "Yay, we raised taxes"???