Lori Montgomery writes for The Washington Post: “All but 13 of 288 GOP lawmakers in Congress have signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes. The strategist who invented the pledge, Grover G. Norquist, compares it to a brand, like Coca-Cola, built on ‘quality control’ so that Republican voters know they will get ‘the same thing every time.’ Loyalty to the brand is so strong that no Republican has voted for a major federal tax increase since 1991, Norquist says. It is so widespread that more than a dozen governors and hundreds of state legislators now count themselves as adherents.”
Henry J. Reske highlights today’s Washington Post article at Newsmax.com: “The GOP has been on a three-decade, anti-tax crusade that is so powerful that House Speaker John Boehner has said that raising taxes to deal with the crushing debt and deficit is ‘unacceptable and a non-starter,’ and all but 13 of the 288 GOP members of Congress have signed Norquist’s formal pledge not to raise taxes, the Post reported. Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, said no Republican has voted for a major federal tax increase since 1991. A dozen governors and hundreds of state legislators have also signed on to the pledge. However, Norquist [has] said equating tax breaks with spending ‘is a threat to the modern Republican Party’s worldview’ of a much smaller government and reducing the tax drag on the economy. Eliminating tax breaks can only be done if all the proceeds are used to push tax rates ‘down as far as possible,’ Norquist told the Post, adding that the work of reducing the national debt must be done entirely by shrinking government.”
Darren Goode from POLITICO writes: “Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said Democrats are unfairly targeting some oil industry incentives — like a section 199 domestic manufacturing tax deduction — that are available to others. ‘It's one thing if you said it's a special tax deduction credit only for this industry because they lobbied well,’ Norquist recently told POLITICO. Norquist’s group is against credits for ethanol and natural gas vehicles, such as in a plan pushed by T. Boone Pickens that has earned some broad bipartisan backing in the House.”
From The Daily Review, Robert Swift reports: “A Senate Republican leader wants to levy a state Marcellus Shale severance tax as a way to pay for a freeze on school property taxes for senior citizens. Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, wrote to senators last week saying the impact fee bill is a tax increase. As a result, he said, any state lawmaker who signed ATR’s anti-tax hike pledge would be violating that pledge if they voted for the impact fee bill. The ATR pledge contains a provision that a tax increase is acceptable if directly offset by a tax cut of equal size so it becomes revenue neutral. Scarnati countered that his impact fee bill doesn't increase taxes and will be offset anyway by several state business tax cuts.”
From The Louisville Courier-Journal, James R. Carroll writes: ‘We're not going to raise taxes,’ McConnell told reporters last month. ‘That was decided in last November's election. I think the American people pretty clearly believe that we have the deficit problem because we spend too much, not because we tax too little.’ That is certainly the position of the Republican Party's tea party contingent. And it is the position of influential conservative organizations such as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which asks for and usually secures a pledge from GOP candidates ‘to oppose and vote against tax increases.’”
Chris Casteel from NewsOK highlights opposition to Sullivan’s natural gas legislation: “Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, sent a letter to lawmakers last month urging them to oppose the NatGas Act. ‘Americans for Tax Reform believes that an energy market which most benefits consumers is one largely absent of government intervention,’ Norquist wrote.”