Which democrats signed norquist pledge

These are true believers. But in the current negotiations, what, exactly, constitutes a break of the pledge? If there were no vote in Congress and taxes rose automatically, then no politicians would have voted for higher taxes and no elected official would have broken his or her pledge. Complete Coverage of the Fiscal Cliff. Ask Republicans in Congress today what they think of the pledge, and many of them say that while they still subscribe to a low-tax view of government, they resent being hamstrung by a piece of paper they signed well before they were elected.

Some of them are even saying they want out. Senator John McCain noted with a certain sense of satisfaction at an Atlantic magazine forum last week that "fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has called the pledge a "tortured vision of tax purity.

Ted Yoho, who will represent part of northern Florida when the new House convenes in January, said: "I'll pledge allegiance to the flag. I'll pledge to be faithful to my wife. Norquist's pledge and likened it to a New Year's resolution that many others will break. Norquist claims to have invented the idea for a no-new-taxes promise when he was a year-old volunteer for Richard M.

Nixon's presidential campaign. He is fond of evocative metaphors, like claiming he wants to reduce government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub. The walls at the headquarters of his interest group are covered with signed copies from conservative heroes like Newt Gingrich, who warns Republicans to stick to their guns. Gingrich, like Mr. Norquist, argues that the pledge protects Republicans from agreeing to stealth tax increases that ultimately hurt them.

Gingrich said last week, "Democrats have won. Democrats call it somewhat more unprintable things. Written by Grover Norquist and signed by all but 22 elected Republicans on Capitol Hill today, it is a simple promise to never, ever raise taxes. And, since , Republicans on Capitol Hill never, ever have.

When President Bill Clinton raised taxes in his first year in office, he received exactly zero Republican votes. The Pledge had build a steel curtain between the tax raisers and the GOP. Four years later, Clinton cut investment taxes. Four years after that, President George W. Bush cut taxes again. And then again. We've never raised them since. But in the wake of President Obama's victory last Tuesday, Norquist's steel fortress is creaking.

The White House insists that there will be no deal to avoid the fiscal cliff unless taxes go up for the richest slice of American households. The group was financed largely by corporate sponsors such as Kraft, the Associated Press reported at the time. In the midterm campaign year of , Norquist rolled out the Taxpayer Protection Pledge as a way to pressure candidates to support Reagan's tax agenda, and as a cudgel for Republicans to wield against Democrats on the campaign trail.

Reagan had already passed tax reforms in drawing the same Democratic criticism of GOP tax policies as today, namely that they favor the wealthy-and the second-term president eyed the bill as part two of his tax agenda. Reagan and congressional Republicans signed onto it.

Reagan promoted the pledge, and Republican candidates ran on the pledge, and while the GOP lost House and Senate seats in the election year, Reagan's tax-reform bill passed: ATR and the pledge had succeeded. Since then, Norquist's pledge has helped enforce near-uniformity in Republican ranks, enshrining as dogma a policy of never raising tax rates.