GOP softens anti-tax rhetoric

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76844.html

Cracks are emerging in the GOP’s hard-line stance against raising tax revenues to slash the deficit, with a number of Republicans willing to go further than their party’s standard-bearer in the face of a looming showdown over the budget.

The softening rhetoric in an election year rife with deficit politics reflects a gulf between Mitt Romney, who pledged during the primary season to oppose new taxes as part of a debt deal, and several Republicans in Congress who are coming to grips with the likelihood that there may be no other path to an accord.

Interviews with more than a dozen Senate Republicans show a growing openness to higher tax revenues to reach a so-called grand bargain on overhauling Medicare, other entitlements, discretionary spending and the Tax Code. On top of that, a small group of House GOP freshmen are balking at conservative activist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, while six Republican senators recently declined to sign a GOP letter calling for the immediate extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.