Congressional Memo: Anti-Tax Pledges Lose Their Sheen As Eyes Turn to Reform

While some pledges, like marriage vows, may always carry weight, strict anti-tax pledges may be losing some of their sheen.

On Tuesday, Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, took to the House floor for a rare excoriation of the anti-tax activist Grover G. Norquist and his strictly worded pledge, which has been signed by almost the entire Republican caucus as well as a few Democrats. A day later, Senator John Thune of North Dakota suggested that anti-tax pledges ought to be revisited, because they can be interpreted too broadly in closing loopholes or eliminating tax deductions. “We shouldn’t be bound by something that could be interpreted different ways if what we’re trying to accomplish is broad-based tax reform,” he said.

These events, and interviews with lawmakers, suggest that anti-tax pledges are beginning to worry lawmakers, fund-raisers and others because of fears that they hamstring efforts to rewrite the nation’s tax code — a task viewed as a necessity by many on both sides of the aisle and the Rotunda.

“There is pledge fatigue,” said Representative Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, who signed the Norquist pledge when he first ran for office in 2004 but has since jettisoned his support. “Many Americans are very cynical about the motives of politicians so they want something harder to be able to believe in a person. But the pledge turns the power over to someone else to interpret whether what you did was right or wrong and limits your creativity.”

Mr. Norquist, who heads the group Americans for Tax Reform, uses his pledge, which began in 1986 with the endorsement of President Reagan, as a litmus test for candidates on taxes. Known as the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, it makes candidates and incumbents “bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases.” Hundreds of Republicans have signed it, including all six on the bipartisan Congressional deficit reduction committee.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who also signed it, said in an interview: “I’ve signed more pledges than I should have over the years. All of us ought to be somewhat reluctant to make these pledges. I think people who have been here longer do fewer.”

To be sure, the majority of Republican lawmakers are not running away from Mr. Norquist. All the Republican presidential candidates other than Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, have gotten on board.

Mr. Norquist said that those who raise questions about the pledge often do not understand it. “The pledge specifically says you can eliminate tax deductions if you bring rates down at same time,” he said. “The people who say that the pledge would get in the way of tax reform, well their point is they want a tax increase.”

But confusion over the fine points of tax policy is the subject of hot debate in the Senate cloakroom, said Al Hoffman Jr., a Republican fund-raiser and former finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. “Several members of Congress have told me privately that they are wrestling with how to deal with this,” he said.

“The smart Republicans realize that if we’re ever going to reconcile with the Democrats and come to a compromise, this is their holy grail,” Mr. Hoffman said. “They want loopholes eliminated and we should call their bluff because many Democrats have lobbied for corporate loopholes too.”

He said that changes in tax policy were also needed to make large-scale changes to entitlement programs. “If we don’t, we’ll be dead in the water and we won’t be able to beat Obama.”

Earlier this year, Senator Tom Coburn, a conservative Republican from Oklahoma, sparred with Mr. Norquist over ethanol subsidies and whether ending them would run afoul of the anti-tax pledge.

Another pledge, known as “the cut, cap and balance pledge,” became a thorn in the side of Speaker John A. Boehner this summer. Several House members refused to approve an increase in the federal debt ceiling — to avoid a government default — because they had signed a pledge that prohibited the increase without enforceable spending caps and the passage of a balanced-budget amendment that included a supermajority for raising taxes.

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who drew up the House budget plan that includes many tax cuts, said that signing the cut, cap and balance pledge “seemed like you were saying you are not ever going to vote to raise the debt ceiling,” and derided it as essentially pointless, even as he voted for supportive legislation.

Mr. Boehner, asked as he left the House floor Wednesday night if the pledges were impeding work on tax policy said, “No.” He took a few brisk steps toward his office. “There is always a way to solve that problem.” he said. Step faster. “Watch. And see.”

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