(REUTERS) — Republican lawmakers who publicly mull acquiescing to tax increases on the wealthiest Americans may be guilty of “impure thoughts” in the words of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, but he says that alone is no reason to throw them out of office.
“Thinking something out loud is not treason,” Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, told Reuters in an interview.
Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma are among a handful of Republicans openly weighing President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise tax rates on household incomes above $250,000, the stickiest point in the talks to avert the “fiscal cliff.”
