It might have started with quiet whispers about breaking THE promise – you know, the one apparently signed in blood to never, ever have an (using Norquist’s imagery) “impure thought” about raising taxes, cutting deductions, letting tax breaks expire or anything remotely related.
But now? It’s not a whisper anymore. It’s a full on grown-up conversation.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has indicated that he would support higher tax rates at the top as part of a budget compromise that would include reductions in spending. Yeah, I said compromise. Believe it or not, the word still exists in D.C.
The move is even more surprising because of Coburn’s reputation as a fiscal conservative. That said, Coburn has reached across the aisle to work with Obama before: in 2006, Coburn and then Senator Barack Obama introduced the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 to encourage fiscal transparency and educate taxpayers about government spending. And for the last several year, together with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), he has worked against earmarks and government waste.
Within a few hours of Coburn’s announcement, two more Republican Senators, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) followed suit. At least one of those moves didn’t catch folks by surprise: Collins had previously voted to support the Buffett Rule, which would have imposed a minimum tax on high income taxpayers.
Is it the beginning of a trend? We’ll see.
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