James Pethokoukis

It is getting interesting. On Twitter, Ryan Ellis (@taxplayer) of Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform had this to say about Judd Gregg, Tom Coburn and Mike Crapo supporting the Obama debt panel recommendations: “by agreeing to the simpson-bowles tax hikes, pledge breakers coburn, crapo, and gregg have admitted they lied about taxes to get elected.”

John Hart from Tom Coburn’s office emailed me this fiery response:

We don’t want to argue with someone calls himself a “taxplaya” but Ryan might want to cool it or tell his boss to come over and tell Dr. Coburn in person that he is a liar and tax-hiker.  Dr. Coburn was asked about the pledge this morning.  He said that if he was a pledge breaker then so was Reagan.   This plan actually brings tax rates to their lowest level since 1916.