Here’s the CBO score of the compromise deal. The top line is that, by hook or crook — that is, by “supercommittee” legislation or the automatic cuts that would be “triggered” in its absence — the deal would cut between $2.1 and $2.3 trillion over the next ten years. At least $917 billion of that (the Boehner cuts) is done without tax revenue. As for the rest . . . who knows? House Republicans are keen on pointing out that since the “supercommittee” has to achieve deficit reduction compared to current law (which assumes the Bush tax cuts expire, and we get $3.5 trillion in new revenue over the next decade) any tax hikes that come out of the process will have to be greater than that $3.5 trillion in order to avoid being scored as deficit-increasing. And that’s something even Democrats dare not do. (Follow me?) But as Josh Barro points out over at The Agenda, this is only really true if you’re looking at tax rates. E.g., Democrats would be hard pressed to argue for bigger marginal rate hikes than those already scheduled to occur at the end of 2012, just to get more deficit reduction. But there are all sorts of other ways to generate tax revenue. One is limiting or eliminated so-called tax expenditures (write-offs and other subsidies). But another, more nefarious method is the creation of new taxes — like the payroll tax “surcharge” in Obamacare. Such vehicles wouldn’t score as messing with “current law” baseline vis-a-vis the Bush tax cuts, but they would score as deficit reducing and they would effectively raise your taxes.

All this being said, I agree with the conventional wisdom that the composition of the committee (it will have Republicans on it!) places great political constraints on raising taxes. But if Boehner was serious about giving POTUS $800 billion in “new revenue” before their talks broke down, why couldn’t these revenues pop back up in the supercommittee?