Norquist Tax Pledge Begins to Crumble
Posted at 8:45 a.m. on Nov. 26, 2012
Over the weekend, two veteran Republican lawmakers went on ABC’s This Week to announce that they are willing to buck Grover Norquist’s famous anti-tax pledge for a deal on the “fiscal cliff,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), “I will violate the pledge for the good of the country only if Democrats will do entitlement reform.”
Said Rep. Peter King (R-NY), “A pledge you signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago, is for that Congress. For instance, if I were in Congress in 1941, I would have supported a declaration of war against Japan. I’m not going to attack Japan today.”
Politico reports that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) rejected the pledge last week.
Jon Meacham: “Republicans are overdue for their own rethinking. After the exhaustion of the first decade of the new century, it’s understandable that such self-examination has been slow in coming, but it apparently has finally come. Whether the GOP is to be pragmatic in the mold of George H.W. Bush or more ideological in the mode of his son is a live question. The Chambliss-Graham-King moment suggests the debate is very much on.”
