What's playing out in America right now is the bait-and-switch strategy known on the right as "starve the beast." The ultimate goal is to slash government programs that help the poor and the middle class, and use the savings to cut taxes for the rich. But the public would never vote for that. So the right has used deceptive salesmanship to undermine tax enforcement and push through upper-income tax cuts. Now that deficits have emerged, the right insists that they are the result of runaway spending, which must be curbed.