From CNN, Julian E. Zelizer notes: “For many conservatives, these and other comments made by Coburn, who is part of the Gang of 6 trying to reach a bipartisan deal on reducing the debt, have revealed that he was never the orthodox conservative he once claimed to be. They cite a no-tax-increase pledge he made in 2004 when he first ran for the Senate. Grover Norquist, who has spent much of his career lighting fires under the feet of conservatives to reject all tax increases, said in a blistering statement that "Coburn said on national TV today that he lied his way into office and will vote to raise taxes if he… feels like it."
Brian Darling from Human Events: “In an interview with the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform pointed out the folly of [the Gang of Six] negotiations. ‘The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit,’ Norquist said. ‘The deficit is the symptom of the disease. And there are several reasons to oppose tax increases.’”
From Bloomberg: “Sponsored by Grover G. Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the famous anti-tax pledge requires Republicans to oppose not just garden variety tax increases but also the removal of any tax subsidy or loophole unaccompanied by reductions in marginal rates. ‘I wrote the pledge this way intentionally,’ Norquist says, ‘so there could be no net tax increases.’ Now there is a nasty squabble under way between Norquist and archconservative Senator Tom A. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who wants to get rid of wasteful subsidies like those for ethanol but is running up against the pledge he signed. Norquist says Coburn ‘lied his way into office.’”