Only in the fantasy world of statism can letting citizens keep more of what they earn be construed as spending. The government has no income of its own, save what it takes from citizens in the form of taxes. Under current conditions, the government gets citizens' money before they do, a slight of hand originally announced as an emergency war-time measure, one of many that became permanent. Ms. Liasson's inadvertent NPR confession not only illustrates the mindset of the prestige press, particularly inside the Beltway. It also outlines the basic difference between liberals and conservatives.
Liberals are people of the state who believe that government holds a claim to what people earn.
When someone proposes a tax cut, they construe it as spending and wonder how the government can afford it. When someone proposes a tax increase, those on the conservative side wonder how individuals will be able to afford it on top of the confiscatory income, sales and property taxes they already pay. As F.A. Hayek noted in The Road to Serfdom, the continued encroachment of the state affects the very soul of citizens, inclining them away from risk-taking and enterprise and toward passivity and dependency. The nation's idea elite, as exemplified by NPR, cannot alert citizens to these realities since it operates not as an impartial observer but government-funded advocate for the statist position. Something to think about, come pledge week.