In case there are still those who do not know who Grover Nordquist is let me assist……he is the guy that has the Tax Pledge that almost all Repubs sign promising to NEVER raise taxes….and there is where the rub is in the debt debate…..Repubs want nothing but cuts and Dems are calling for cuts and revenue sections to any bill…..up until about a year ago…cracks are starting to form in his wall of tax cuts only…….

One of the leaders of the hammer brigade is Sen. Coburn, a Repub, but it is more in the form of a technicality than an outright dismissal of the Pledge he signed when he came to Washington……

This from the Fiscal Times……

The Wall Street Journal reportedthat Coburn was among the members of a small bipartisan group of senators who are willing to consider taxes as part of a deficit reduction package. Norquist immediately went after the three Republicans named in the article: Coburn, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and Mike Crapo of Idaho. (The Democrats are Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Richard Durbin of Illinois, and Mark Warner of Virginia.)The same day the Journal article appeared, Norquist fired off a letter to Chambliss, Coburn and Crapo, threatening them with retaliation for their apostasy:

I was disappointed this morning to read an article … in which you were implicated as parties to a bipartisan budget deal containing a net tax increase…. Needless to say, support for such a deal would most likely be a violation of your Taxpayer Protection Pledge. That pledge which you made to your constituents and the American people obligates you to “…oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar-for-dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

I urge you to reject this so-called “deal” which is little more than a transparent attempt to hike taxes and put off the spending restraint the country clearly called for in the 2010 elections.

Chambliss, Coburn and Crapo immediately wrote back to Norquist, rejecting his threat and the logic of his argument. They said there is a huge difference between a legislated tax increase and the natural rise in revenue that would accompany faster growth resulting from tax reform.

To Nordquist, the deficit is NOT important at all…….

Norquist is backed into a corner and forced to admit that he doesn’t really care about the deficit. He told the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein on March 9, “The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit.”When asked to explain how the size and scope of government is reduced by the tax pledge, Norquist fell back on a discredited doctrine called “starve the beast,” which says that tax cuts somehow or other automatically reduce spending and that the only thing to talk about is spending.

There must be revenue increases if there is to be a true recovery……cuts alone will do little to nothing….hopefully there are those that can do the math…….it is basic math not some exaggerated formula…….

So I ask again, is there cracks appearing in the Nordquist wall?

But wait!  There is an addendum……..this from yesterday’s Think Progress……

The Washington Post editorial board reported this morning that Norquist himself stated that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2012 would not technically violate his pledgeas “not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase”:

Would allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We posed this question to Grover Norquist, its author and enforcer, and his answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist’s interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue — the cost of extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another decade — without being accused of breaking their promise. “Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase,” Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn’t violate the pledge? “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.

Norquist is quickly trying to walk back that statement, declaring that “any failure to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, in whole or in part, would clearly increase taxes on the American people.” However, even while reaffirming this principle on MSNBC this morning, Norquist stated again that there are technical ways to allow the tax cuts to expire that “and not violate the pledge.”

Cracks are forming……’Mr. Nordquist…tear down this wall’………(sorry could not resist)………