CAP's Pat Garofalo catches retiring Republican Sen. George Voinovich criticizing an anti-tax pledge circulated by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) that has been signed by a majority of Republican elected officials in Washington. It's rare to see a Republican stroll outside the orthodoxy on taxes, as Jon Chait noted earlier today. Voinovich was talking about concerns that the new deficit commission would fail because Republicans could not agree to a compromise that includes higher tax rates.
“I think that a lot of my colleagues have taken the pledge, and what they have to understand is that that pledge is inconsistent with the oath of office that they took when they became members of the United States Senate.... You know, some of my Republican friends are saying, ‘Oh, boy, you know, look at the president's numbers,' and so forth, but they fail to realize, what are your numbers? … I have to tell you something: If we don't get something out of that [budget] commission, we are over the cliff.”
While I don't hold with the debt scarin', it is nice to hear an elected Republican, even one who isn't running for re-election, criticizing the pledge, which requires signees not to support increased taxes, or close tax loopholes, like those that reward companies for sending workers overseas, unless total tax revenue remains the same. ATR has announced its opposition to a current bill that would close the aforementioned loophole along with others that allow hedge-fund employees to have their income assessed as capital gains, not wages.
Democrats have been making hay of the pledge in recent campaigns, since in effect it mandates Republicans support tax subsidies to corporations, and we can expect similar rhetoric throughout the rest of the 2010 midterm cycle.
--Tim Fernholz
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