Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) continues to aggressively push for a massive net tax increase as part of a grand compromise with President Obama and congressional Democrats.  Coburn finds himself increasingly isolated from the Republican party and the conservative movement which has taken taxes off the table in any budget negotiations.  During a recent interview on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show, Coburn said the following:

COBURN: "Do I believe we have to raise taxes to be able to get a deal to cut spending? Yeah."

As Coburn prepares to sell out, a growing number of Republicans have issued definitive statements taking tax hikes off the table.  On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) was incredulous that tax increases were even being discussed:

McCONNELL: “I think I can safely say this Congress is not going to raise taxes. So why are we still talking about this?”

Speaker John Boehner echoed those remarks in a press conference today:

BOEHNER: “Tax hikes are off the table.”

On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) reaffirmed tax hikes are off the table:

CANTOR: “My position has been very solid, we are not raising taxes.”

On Tuesday, in an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) was asked about the possibility of raising government revenue through the elimination of tax credits.  Thune dismissed the idea outright:

THUNE:  "No, I don't think that any type of tax increase, however defined, is something that Republicans think needs to be on the table when you’ve got spending problem that the country has. We clearly don't have a revenue issue. We have a spending problem in Washington, DC as is evidenced by the way that spending as a percentage of our entire economy has gone up in the past few years.”

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the following: 

“We all have high hopes that Senator Coburn from Oklahoma will finally now stop lobbying for Obama’s tax increases to pay for Obama’s overspending.  Now he can rejoin Sens. McConnell, Kyl, Thune, Hatch, as well as Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and the American tax payers in fighting to reduce Washington spending.  Spending is the problem. Reducing spending is the only solution.”

Here is the PDF.

Posted by John Kartch on Thursday, June 23, 2011 4:15 PM EDT

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