GOP lawmaker: I didn’t agree to marry Grover Norquist forever

[kpete]

“Will you support more revenues?” Fox News host Mike Wallace asked Simpson Sunday. “Either from raising tax rates or cutting deductions as a part of the plan to cut the deficit?”

“You have to,” Simpson declared. “The reality is you can’t get to $4 trillion without including additional revenue. We might have different ideas about what those revenues will look like. I think you could get additional revenues by actually lowering the tax rates and eliminating all of the exemptions underneath and that type of thing. And I think you’d have an economic boom in this country and the revenue would come in to the federal government. So, more revenue is key to this.”

“Grover Norquist, a name with which I’m sure you’re familiar, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, has a pledge that you and all but six House Republicans have signed to oppose any net increases in taxes — exactly the opposite of what you just said to me,” Wallace noted. “How many House Republicans do you think will follow you, are willing to break their pledge and, quite frankly, put their political futures at risk to make this deal?”

“I signed that in 1998 when I first ran,” Simpson recalled. “I didn’t know I was signing a marriage agreement that would last forever and I think the majority of members of Congress that you have to have additional revenue.”

MORE:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/06/gop-lawmaker-i-didnt-agree-to-marry-grover-norquist-forever/

[Poll_Blind]

1. This also ties into the bipartisan letter signed a few days ago by both D's and R's:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-04/forty-house-republicans-back-revenue-increase-to-cut-deficit.html">Forty House Republicans Back Revenue Increase to Cut Deficit

60 D's and 40 R's signed it. The letter itself, as worded, is unfortunately ambiguous- and probably intentionally so. Still, it is some kind of a weird start, I guess.

PB

[louis-t]

2. I can't wait to see Norquist wet himself when

repugs eventually resign themselves to real facts. Their is a crack in their armor.

[Ship of Fools]

3. "...and, quite frankly, put their political futures at risk to make this deal?”

And that, dear Mr. Wallace, is precisely the problem. Clueless, faux journalist that you are -- will you EVER GET IT?

[gulliver]

4. GOP fingers glued to the doorjamb on this one.

Thanks, Grover!

But you watch. The GOP rank and file will forgive breaking the pledge. The Tea Party is shutting up, Sarah Palin is out of the news, and Mitt Romney is headed for their nomination. Principles be damned. Anything to win.