GOP wonders on debt compromise: To tax or not to tax?

The day before the final vote on the deficit-reduction plan, a senior staffer at Americans for Tax Reform wrote on Twitter that the three lawmakers had misled voters about their past support for the no-new-taxes pledge that the advocacy group encourages candidates to sign. One of the staffer’s messages said the GOP senators “lied about taxes to get elected.”

As budget talks progressed this year, Mr. Norquist warned the senators in a letter that agreeing to a similar deal “would most likely be a violation” of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge. Mr. Coburn and his allies said they would support a tax overhaul only if it raised revenue by accelerating economic growth.

In recent comments, Mr. Coburn upped the ante,attackinged Americans for Tax Reform’s bona fides as a tax-and-budget watchdog. Mr. Coburn assailed the group’s past support for a widely criticized tax credit for producers of ethanol, an alternative motor fuel, dismissing the measure as “corporate welfare.”