Republicans received a lot of criticism for signing on to Grover Norquist's No Tax pledge, and they recently have been inching away from it. Democrats complained that the deficit couldn't be fixed unless Republicans agreed to put revenues on the table.
However, President Obama made basically the same pledge. Obama said he would not raise taxes on households making less than $250,000, which are 98.5% of households.
So if you say taxes can't rise on anyone, you're deeply irresponsible and unserious. If, instead, you say we have to raise $1.6T worth of taxes from 1.5% of households, then you're enlightened.
I prefer taxes not be raised at all, but I care more about the deficit than taxes, so I'm willing to stomach an increase. But the pain should be distributed so that even the middle class shares in it; it can't all just be on high income earners, which is what Democrats have proposed so far.