Some GOP lawmakers now flout anti-tax man Norquist
WASHINGTON (AP) - For decades, conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist vowed to drive Republicans out of office if they didn't pledge to oppose tax increases. Many lawmakers signed on.
But now, several senior Republicans are breaking ranks, willing to consider raising more money through taxes as part of a deal with Democrats to avoid a catastrophic budget meltdown.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says the only pledge he will keep is his oath of office. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says no one in his home state of Virginia is talking about what leaders in Washington refer to simply as "The Pledge," a Norquist invention that dates to 1986. Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss says he cares more about his country than sticking to Norquist's pledge.
It's quite an about-face for senior members of a party that long has stood firmly against almost any notion of tax increases. And while GOP leaders insist they still don't want to see taxes go up, the reality of a nation in a debt crisis is forcing some to moderate their opposition to any movement on how much Americans pay to fund their government. Republican legislators and Democratic President Barack Obama's White House are haggling vigorously as they look for ways to reach agreement on detailed tax adjustments and spending cuts before automatic, blunt-force changes occur at the new year.
"Oh, I signed it," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said on Fox News about Norquist's pledge, adding he still supports its goals. "But we've got to deal with the crisis we face. We've got to deal with the political reality of the president's victory."
The naysaying about the pledge is raising the question of whether Norquist - a little-known Republican outside Washington - is losing his position of power within the GOP. It's a notion he calls ridiculous.
"Nobody's turning on me," Norquist said Monday.
But he indicated he would turn on lawmakers who defy him, starting with Corker, who published an opinion piece Monday in The Washington Post outlining an alternative to the budget breakdown that includes more revenue.
"Corker was elected to the Senate because he took the pledge," Norquist said on Fox News. "He would not be a senator today if he hadn't made that commitment. If he breaks it, he's going to have to have a conversation with the people of Tennessee about his keeping his word. And the same thing with other people who are elected because they made that written commitment to the people of their state."
At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the shifting away from Norquist signaled an opportunity for Republicans to work with President Obama.
"They represent what we hope is a difference in tone and approach to these problems and a recognition that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is the right approach," Carney said.
Norquist, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, opposes tax increases of any kind, whether eliminating deductions, a position some GOP lawmakers say they're open to, or raising rates. He has insisted on hardline positions from lawmakers and, for years, has held outsized sway in the party for someone who does not hold public office. His pledge doesn't allow any change to the tax code that adds a dollar to revenues.
House Speaker John Boehner has called that notion unrealistic and has dismissed Norquist as "some random person."
Nevertheless, Norquist has maintained a certain level of clout for years.
Heading into the 2012 elections, 279 lawmakers had signed Norquist's' pledge, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
But some who have signed the pledge are having second thoughts. And when the new House is seated next year, no more than 212 of them consider themselves bound by the promise.
"I'm not obligated on the pledge," Corker told CBS News. "I was just elected. The only thing I'm honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I'm sworn in this January."
He's not alone in his stance on the pledge.
"When I go to the constituents that have re-elected me, it is not about that pledge," Cantor said on MSNBC. "It really is about trying to solve problems."
Chambliss, a veteran senator from Georgia, said he signed the pledge during an earlier campaign when the country's debt was nowhere near its current $16 trillion level.
"Times have changed significantly, and I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss told his local television station. "If we do it (Norquist's) way, then we'll continue in debt."
"I'm frankly not concerned about the Norquist pledge," Chambliss added.
Raising taxes, whether by closing loopholes or raising tax rates, is seldom a vote-winning strategy.
President George H.W. Bush broke his campaign promise to not raise taxes; he ended up losing re-election in 1992.
Other Republicans, however, are now willing to put additional tax revenues on the table as a bargaining chip for a deal with Democrats to get changes in Social Security and Medicare and pare down federal deficits.
"I agree with Grover, we shouldn't raise rates. But I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"I will violate the pledge - long story short - for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform," he added.
Rep. Peter King of New York told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the pledge is good for a two-year term only.
"A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress," King said. "For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a support of declaration of war against Japan. I'm not going to attack Japan today. The world has changed, and the economic situation is different."
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, said the pledge is losing its clout.
"Fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge," he told an audience recently.
But now, several senior Republicans are breaking ranks, willing to consider raising more money through taxes as part of a deal with Democrats to avoid a catastrophic budget meltdown.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says the only pledge he will keep is his oath of office. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says no one in his home state of Virginia is talking about what leaders in Washington refer to simply as "The Pledge," a Norquist invention that dates to 1986. Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss says he cares more about his country than sticking to Norquist's pledge.
It's quite an about-face for senior members of a party that long has stood firmly against almost any notion of tax increases. And while GOP leaders insist they still don't want to see taxes go up, the reality of a nation in a debt crisis is forcing some to moderate their opposition to any movement on how much Americans pay to fund their government. Republican legislators and Democratic President Barack Obama's White House are haggling vigorously as they look for ways to reach agreement on detailed tax adjustments and spending cuts before automatic, blunt-force changes occur at the new year.
"Oh, I signed it," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said on Fox News about Norquist's pledge, adding he still supports its goals. "But we've got to deal with the crisis we face. We've got to deal with the political reality of the president's victory."
The naysaying about the pledge is raising the question of whether Norquist - a little-known Republican outside Washington - is losing his position of power within the GOP. It's a notion he calls ridiculous.
"Nobody's turning on me," Norquist said Monday.
But he indicated he would turn on lawmakers who defy him, starting with Corker, who published an opinion piece Monday in The Washington Post outlining an alternative to the budget breakdown that includes more revenue.
"Corker was elected to the Senate because he took the pledge," Norquist said on Fox News. "He would not be a senator today if he hadn't made that commitment. If he breaks it, he's going to have to have a conversation with the people of Tennessee about his keeping his word. And the same thing with other people who are elected because they made that written commitment to the people of their state."
At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the shifting away from Norquist signaled an opportunity for Republicans to work with President Obama.
"They represent what we hope is a difference in tone and approach to these problems and a recognition that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is the right approach," Carney said.
Norquist, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, opposes tax increases of any kind, whether eliminating deductions, a position some GOP lawmakers say they're open to, or raising rates. He has insisted on hardline positions from lawmakers and, for years, has held outsized sway in the party for someone who does not hold public office. His pledge doesn't allow any change to the tax code that adds a dollar to revenues.
House Speaker John Boehner has called that notion unrealistic and has dismissed Norquist as "some random person."
Nevertheless, Norquist has maintained a certain level of clout for years.
Heading into the 2012 elections, 279 lawmakers had signed Norquist's' pledge, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
But some who have signed the pledge are having second thoughts. And when the new House is seated next year, no more than 212 of them consider themselves bound by the promise.
"I'm not obligated on the pledge," Corker told CBS News. "I was just elected. The only thing I'm honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I'm sworn in this January."
He's not alone in his stance on the pledge.
"When I go to the constituents that have re-elected me, it is not about that pledge," Cantor said on MSNBC. "It really is about trying to solve problems."
Chambliss, a veteran senator from Georgia, said he signed the pledge during an earlier campaign when the country's debt was nowhere near its current $16 trillion level.
"Times have changed significantly, and I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," Chambliss told his local television station. "If we do it (Norquist's) way, then we'll continue in debt."
"I'm frankly not concerned about the Norquist pledge," Chambliss added.
Raising taxes, whether by closing loopholes or raising tax rates, is seldom a vote-winning strategy.
President George H.W. Bush broke his campaign promise to not raise taxes; he ended up losing re-election in 1992.
Other Republicans, however, are now willing to put additional tax revenues on the table as a bargaining chip for a deal with Democrats to get changes in Social Security and Medicare and pare down federal deficits.
"I agree with Grover, we shouldn't raise rates. But I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we can't cap deductions and buy down debt," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"I will violate the pledge - long story short - for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform," he added.
Rep. Peter King of New York told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the pledge is good for a two-year term only.
"A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress," King said. "For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a support of declaration of war against Japan. I'm not going to attack Japan today. The world has changed, and the economic situation is different."
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, said the pledge is losing its clout.
"Fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge," he told an audience recently.
That ripping noise you hear is Republicans suffering from gas...
There must be cuts and tax increases. A balanced approached for a balanced budget. Our current tax rates are the lowest they have been in over 60 years.
Nrquist is a goon. Â Put him out to slaughter.
I love how programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid have all been 're-branded' as 'Entitlements' Did any of us catch that or did we simply accept it without question.....Any program I pay into during the course of my working life is NOT an entitlement.... It's a targeted tax otherwise known as an insurance policy.Â
 @Poisonous Giraffe They are called "entitlements" because people would object to Congress openly taking their "investments"...
@Poisonous Giraffe That's been bugging me. I look at my dad, and my mother in law, and see how little they are getting in SS, and how Medicare/ Medicaid isn't quite covering things like prescriptions, and then look at how long they both have worked and paid into it. Then I look at my paycheck and see the deductions. How is SS, Medicare, Medicaid an entitlement?Â
Welfare, yes. SS?? No.
 @amr201  @Poisonous What I find amazing is that the average yearly salary of a US Congressman (woman) is $174,000.00 and they want to take away monies from the people that make far less than they make and turn around and give away (via tax breaks) billions in US revenue to the upper 2% of American wage earners. It is a travesty that 1) they would consider that ethical and 2) be so callus about it.
 @Poisonous Giraffe Oh ya. It was caught all right. Their reasoning for calling them entitlements is because it is believe that the average Joe works for 25 years, retires and draws SS and Medicare for the next 30 or more years. I know that I have worked for 40 years now and still have 5 years before I am eligible for my SS and Medicare; I say mine because I have been paying into both for the last 40 years.
The wealthy didn't need a tax cut in 2002, and they won't be harmed when the top rate goes back to 39.6%.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: "I will violate the pledge - long story short - for the good of the country, only if Democrats will do entitlement reform." Many of the congressional Republicans agree, but not one of them will put a tax increase on the table. Instead, they believe tax reform, that will elimination of some tax breaks and reductions in so-called entitlements will answer the need for government revenue. The tax breaks they want to eliminate mean little to the upper 2%, but for the middle and poorer classes they mean a lot, as do the so-called entitlement reductions. Their tax plan calls for the elimination of the mortgage, unemployment and child deductions costing the average American around $3000.00 a year. The entitlement programs are Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment benefit extensions, food stamps, daycare subsidies, early childhood education, school programs that feed the needy children, farm subsidies, etc, all will impact middle and poorer class families. These suns of a guns are sneaky and we must be vigilant, focused and ready to remind the President why he won re-election. It certainly wasn't because he might make headway in some bi-partisan deal with congressional Republicans or to burden middle and poorer class with a larger share of generating government revenue. He was sent back to the White House to right some very lopsided laws and eliminate tax breaks given to the rich by a Republican House, Senate and President and he had allowed to continue for the upper 2% of Americans in his 1st term.
@left-center You are way too polite with the son of a gun euphemism.
Fifty lashes for stepping out of line. How dare they think on their own.
The next thing you know the will be able to feed and dress themselves.
I listened to this guy and Carlson on the radio this morning. I phoned in to remind them that we rose to greatness as a nation with a top 70-90% tax rate. They tried to argue that those rates never really existed because of exemptions that their holy man Reagan supposedly did away with, but last time I checked those exemptions were still there, just look at Romney and Buffet and how much they paid.
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As for Reagan, it was because of Reagan, not any democrat, that we are in a perpetual deficit crisis. It was Reagan's first Chief of Office of Budget Management who transformed the government from using actual gathered revenues in generating the budget to FORECASTED revenues. Isn't it insane that the Republicans try to remember Reagan as this pinnacle of fiscal responsibility?!
Only fools would sign such an agreement. They don't have a crystal ball and cannot foretell the future. Just a bunch of lemmings following in lock-step. I'm sure they did a pinky-shake on it too. <rolleyes>
@d_2 Too be fair, at the time they thought it was a good way to get more money and more support and thus a better chance of being elected as a rep. I.e. a deal with the devil.
Swearing an oath of allegiance to a millionaire K street lobbyist instead of to your constituents shouldn't be treated as a badge of honor. How is it that our elected officials don't know this? Most importantly how is it that the voters in this country aren't willing to boot these clowns out of office?
Can't fix the budget without both tax increases and making cuts to government spending. If I was the dems I would just let the sequestration happen and then increase taxes on the wealthy back up to about 70% where they use to be in the 70's when we were all doing so well.
One huge reason there should be laws reigning in the power of lobbyists. Folks, it's the lobbyists who run our government. Not us. And that is the sad truth.
Pathetic. What happeneded to politicians working for America. Any politician who is willing to sign some "pledge" should be unemployed.Â
@HallandOates - agreed. When they swear an 'oath to Norquist' (or any other person) they violate thier oath of office.
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While the idea of not raising taxes is a good one, swearing obedience to someone or something other than the American Constitution and the United States is pretty pathetic.
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There are times when one must allow taxes to be raised and/or spending cut to insure the success of this country, and anyone swearing allegiance to a promise to never, under any circumstance, allow one or the other to occur is basically a traitor to what they say they beleive in (this Country).
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