Nothing riles up the tea party chattering class like a broken pledge against raising taxes. Just ask Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a veteran Georgia Republican who this week turned his back on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge he signed years ago as a rite of passage in right-wing politics. Immediately labeled "worthless" and "a liar" on the website Tea Party Nation, Chambliss symbolizes the political conundrum facing GOP leaders after President Barack Obama's re-election. After years of opposing higher taxes on anyone, Republicans now are under pressure to work out a comprehensive agreement to reduce the nation's chronic federal deficits and debt.
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"He's never promised me anything," Grover Norquist says about Sen. Saxby Chambliss
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Chambliss is the latest conservative to reject Norquist's pledge
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Congress returns to work next week facing the year-end "fiscal cliff"
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Without a deal, tax hikes and steep spending cuts will take effect next year
In response to @placeholder, Norquist told CNN that the senator "wrote a commitment to the voters of Georgia."
"To call Chambliss an idiot is to insult people of lower intelligence," blogger Judson Phillips of @placeholder wrote.