Free Republic

A leading anti-tax-increase crusader says he doesn't think that letting Bush-era tax breaks expire is violation of a no-tax-increase pledge. So do Republicans now have a way out of the debt ceiling deadlock? Democrats sure seemed to think so Thursday. Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Washington Post's editorial board this week that he wouldn't consider voting to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012 to be breaking his organization's pledge that most Republicans and some Democrats signed. "Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase," Norquist...

"When you’re dealing with something as fractious as the conservative movement — I mean, when there were only five of us we were arguing — that dissent is really part of the energy. And that’s the difference between conservatives and all the rest. They go home invigorated after their arguments are over,” American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene tells Inside the Beltway. “At CPAC, they meet new people to work with and work for, they parse out the politics. And they end up with renewed energy to pick up the cudgels for the next fight...I'm the designated pinata."