"Recently a Republican in the House minority said that he was not willing to trade the jobs in peril of layoffs for an unnecessary income tax."
Everyone who has a half-way decent job pays Federal income tax. So what jobs have been lost simply due to having to pay Federal income taxes? In my 71 years, I've never heard of anyone losing their job over having to pay taxes.
Whenever I find myself in a high tax bracket, I'm thrilled silly, just to have the income to be taxed. I think that that is just a Repub sound bite, that fails to pass introspection. A little self-examination can reveal thinking errors ... and that's all this rationalization does ... takes advantage of common thinking errors.