Democrats Propose Plan to Sidestep G.O.P. Anti-Tax Pledge.

[elleng]

Senate Democrats — holding firm against extending tax cuts for the rich — are proposing a novel way to circumvent the Republican pledge not to vote for any tax increase: Allow all the tax cuts to expire Jan. 1, then vote on a tax cut for the middle class shortly thereafter.

The proposal illustrates the lengths lawmakers are going to in an effort to include new federal revenues in a fix for the “fiscal cliff,” the reckoning in January that would come when all Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs kick in.

Virtually every Republican in Congress has taken the pledge, pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, never to vote for a tax increase — a pledge both parties see as a serious impediment to a tax compromise. But if tax rates snap back to the levels of the Clinton presidency on Jan. 1, any legislation to reinstate some of those tax cuts — but not all of them — would be considered a tax cut.

“Many Republicans are starting to realize something important: On Jan. 1, if we haven’t gotten to a deal, Grover Norquist and his pledge are no longer relevant to this conversation,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said this week in a speech at the Brookings Institution. “We will have a new fiscal and political reality.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/us/politics/senate-democrats-propose-letting-all-tax-cuts-expire.html?hp

[sadbear]

1. Norquist would just come up with a new pledge to combat that proposal.

If they've ever been beholden to Norquist, they will ALWAYS be beholden to him.

[emulatorloo]

2. This might work.

After the election, so they wouldn't have to acting all nuts for the base.

I hear rumors that there are several Republicans are ready to do it.