These are the times that try supply-siders’ souls.

In Colorado, voters agreed to loosen budget restrictions established by constitutional amendment in the 1992. In Virginia, a Democratic candidate who has supported tax increases appears poised to defeat the Republican favorite. And supply-side veteran and columnist Bruce Bartlett has just published a book titled “Imposter, How George Bush Bankrupted American and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.”

“The administration’s massive increases in government spending … make a sharp increase in taxes inevitable,” asserts Mr. Bartlett.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Republicans are rushing to push a package of expenditure cuts of somewhere between $35 billion and $50 billion. But even if they manage to get that much, it wouldn’t make much a dent in the deficit of more than $300 billion, critics point out. And some Republicans are openly quavering at the prospect of being labeled mean-spirited if pushed to do more.

But keep in mind that even as Colorado’s voters were loosening the reins of their spending limitations, they voted against a $2 billion bond for more spending. And the Republican candidate in Virginia may have fallen behind because of his own muddy stance on taxes.

Let’s also remember that what the born-again budget balancers on the left are after are not spending cuts – most of which they vigorously oppose – but tax increases, or, at the very least, allowing the dread Bush’s 2003 cuts in dividend and capital gains taxes to expire as scheduled in 2008. Indeed, the left asserts, it would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

Liberal columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. spelled it out in the Washington Post last week: “I’m sorry to wax so angry, but I’m aghast that some serious people are giving congressional conservatives credit for ‘finally facing up to the deficit.’ If House leaders were serious about the deficit, they would admit that you can’t finance a war with tax cuts.”

Such rhetoric may find resonance on the right as well as the left. After all, shouldn’t we all – and particularly the wealthy – be willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the troops?

But before you rush to answer yes, cast your thoughts back to the late 1960s. Then, as now, we were involved in a controversial war. Then, as now, there was considerable criticism of a “guns-and-butter” policy on the part of the administration (in this case the Democratic administration of Lyndon B. Johnson). Then, as now, there was pressure from “responsible” Republicans for a tax increase.

Johnson caved under the pressure, agreeing to a 10% surtax on incomes in 1966 – a form of taxation that hit particularly hard at the upper end of the income scale. Yet Johnson was still forced to withdraw from the 1968 election, which was won by Richard Nixon in a squeaker. And though Nixon had pledged to repeal the surtax before its expiration date, he shared the panic about deficits. He reneged on his pledge and went on to raise capital gains taxes sharply.

The economy, already headed down, promptly plunged into recession. Deficits started rising anyway, the dollar started falling, OPEC raised prices to protect the value of its dollar-denominated oil – and America suffered a humiliating retreat from Vietnam in any case. And, oh yes, spending continued its relentless upward climb.

In other words, “sacrifice” turned out be another word for some very bad policy decisions. If today’s politicians really think the war in Iraq is too much of a sacrifice to make for the benefit of future generations, much less a lie, let them vote to end it rather than drag the American economy down so that they can avoid any sacrifices of their own.

Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.