“This is a fantasy on the part of the liberal Democrats that the Republicans would be stupid enough to repeat 1990 and throw away a winning hand politically,” Norquist said. “Why would you elect a Republican Senate if they just sat down with Obama and raised everyone’s taxes?”
The pledge
A look at the differences between President Obama’s budget proposal and the House GOP plan to tackle the rising national debt.
Breaking with Norquist would be risky for any Republican. He is a center of gravity in conservative politics, convening weekly strategy meetings with activists and GOP officials. His group says 41 senators, including Coburn, and 237 House members have signed the pledge, in which candidates vow to oppose “all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business” as well as “any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”
The political sensitivities for
Republicans were underscored Wednesday when President Obama delivered a partisan speech demanding higher taxes for the rich. The confrontational remarks could make it more difficult for Republicans such as Coburn to negotiate a compromise with Democrats involving changes in the tax code.
How the debate among Republicans is resolved in the coming weeks will play a large role in determining whether a grand bipartisan bargain on deficit reduction is possible. “There’s a significant split over whether to put taxes on the table,” said Dan Mitchell, an economist at the libertarian Cato Institute and a Norquist ally.
Mitchell said the disagreement largely pits House and Senate Republicans against each other and gives Democrats a potential political edge. “Obama has it within his power to drive a big wedge between House and Senate GOP-ers and turn the tax issue from something that works on behalf of Republicans into something that works against them,” he said.
The GOP’s challenge
The challenge confronting Republicans who could be open to higher taxes was evident this week in remarks by Chambliss, who with Coburn is part of the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Six” working on a deficit-reduction plan.
“You can’t solve this debt problem with just reductions in discretionary spending,” the senator from Georgia told CNN. “You can’t solve it just by attacking and reforming entitlements. You’ve got to look at the revenue side also.”
Chambliss said the group was looking at reductions in overall rates for people and businesses coupled with the elimination of “tax expenditures,” a term that refers to breaks and loopholes.
“If we don’t want to pay the debt back, then we could just not worry about the revenues, but the fact is we’ve got a $14 trillion debt staring us in the face and revenue has to be on the table if we’re serious about attacking that debt,” Chambliss told the network.
Still, after Obama’s speech, Chambliss said he was “disappointed to hear the president advocate for tax increases.” Chambliss added that he would “continue to advocate for tax reform that lowers individual and corporate rates.”
Meanwhile, Camp, the House Ways and Means chairman, is now at work on tax overhaul legislation that would eliminate deductions and lower rates. Though Camp has said his plan would not be designed to raise more money through taxes, he has left the door open to compromise.
Ryan said in an interview that he advocates a “pro-growth” tax overhaul that would not be designed to draw in more tax receipts. But if a more efficient tax code spurs economic growth, he said, “then you do get more revenues. Higher GDP means more revenue.”
Such a policy would not violate the Norquist pledge. But asked whether there’s any room for negotiation over the Democratic goal of collecting more money through higher taxes, Ryan said, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
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