Rejecting tax pledge would ease D.C. gridlock

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June 2, 2012

Rejecting tax pledge would ease D.C. gridlock

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Sat Sep 22, 2012, 03:42 PM EDT

Several Republican candidates for Congress have made news recently by refusing to sign conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge.

Since 1986, Norquist has pressured lawmakers to sign his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, in which lawmakers vow to oppose tax increases of any kind. Of the 242 Republicans serving in the House, 238 have signed the pledge, including Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook. To his credit, Rep. Richard Hanna, R-Barneveld, has not.

But of the 25 leading candidates being promoted by the National Republican Congressional Committee, at least one-third have indicated they are unwilling to sign the pledge.

The notion that Norquist's pledge is a sincere defense of taxpayers should have been rejected a long time ago, as the myriad loopholes that exist in the tax code can't be closed without violating the pledge.

Such loopholes benefit some taxpayers more than others. According to a Bloomberg report this week, one out of every 189 taxpayers earning more than $200,000 annually -- 10,800 households in all -- paid no income taxes at all last year.

But in the Norquist pledge, no credits or deductions can be eliminated "unless matched dollar-for-dollar by further reducing tax rates." That's what former Republican state Sen. Richard Tisei of Massachusetts was worried about when he refused to sign the pledge.

"If there's a loophole that can be closed that ends up generating additional revenue that can be used specifically to pay down the national debt, I'm not going to lose sleep," Tisei said to the Washington Post last week. "And I don't want to be bound by the pledge not to close it."

Pennsylvania state Rep. Scott Perry echoed Tisei's concerns, saying he was disappointed when all of the GOP presidential candidates said in a debate last fall they would have rejected a deal during last year's debt-ceiling standoff that would have matched $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases.

Norquist's pledge also precludes the plan suggested by the 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which called for a formula of 85 percent spending cuts and 15 percent tax increases.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, vented his frustration with Norquist to CNN's Fareed Zakaria last weekend.

"For heaven's sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the Earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he'll defeat you," he said. "He can't murder you. He can't burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for re-election."

Or, as Norquist's waning popularity suggests, he might drag down your re-election prospects. Politics is based on compromise, and Norquist's brand of obstructionism makes governance nearly impossible.