At the 11th hour before the Senate vote, Tea Party Patriots – whose leadership had been opposing the tax cut deal, but not widely quoted –
comes out swinging with that
most media-friendly of responses, a petition. They add the prefix “backroom” to the word “deal,” and open fire.
On September 23, all of the House GOP leadership agreed to the “Pledge to America .” A photo op was arranged at the Tart Lumber store in Sterling, Virginia, and the senior leaders of the would-be majority, with their shirt sleeves rolled up, took the pledge and asked America for the majority back. There are at least five provisions of the Pledge that are violated by ” The Deal .” In September the House GOP promised to:
- “Permanently Stop All Job-Killing Tax Hikes” (p. 16)
- “Act immediately to Reduce Spending” (p. 21)
- “Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, Pre-Bailout Levels” (p. 21)
- “Read the Bill” (p. 33)
- “Advance Legislative Issues One at a Time” (p. 33)
The assault of ” The Deal ” on “The Pledge” will make the latter a joke, and instantly impacts the credibility of all future efforts to propose agendas to the electorate.
In the statement announcing this, TPP’s Jenny Beth Martin says Republicans are delivering “an insult to those who voted them into power to procrastinate on theirpledge to honor conservative principles.” And so Charles Krauthammer and Grover Norquist have company in opposition, albeit much more muted than opposition to, say, cap-and-trade. TPP doesn’t pledge any specific retribution, only that activists’ “anger will not diminish.”
UPDATE: RedState
joins the fight
, with an odd caveat that opposing the tax deal is “not a hill to die on.”
