Saxby Chambliss Slams Grover Norquist (VIDEO)

It’s been a slow decline for Grover Norquist and his no-tax pledge that numerous Republicans have signed, but the writing has been on the wall for some time, and in the wake of the shellacking the GOP received in the general election, his decline in influence is becoming ever more apparent.

The latest GOPer to pile on is Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who ripped into Norquist in an interview with WMAZ:

CHAMBLISS: The pledge I signed twenty years ago was valid then, it’s valid now, but times have changed significantly, and I care more about this country than I do about a twenty-year-old pledge, and I care about the country we’re gonna leave our children and grandchildren. If we do it his way, then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that Grover Norquist would hold a no new tax pledge that you signed twenty years ago – would he hold that against you in an upcoming reelection bid for the US Senate?

CHAMBLISS: In all likelihood, yes, but I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do about Grover Norquist, and right now, we’ve got an issue of how we’re gonna figure this out. It’s kind of interesting…Grover Norquist has no plan to pay this debt down. His plan says you continue to add to the debt, and I just have a fundamental disagreement with him about that. I’m willing to do the right thing and let the political consequences take care of themselves.

WATCH (story continues below):

My, my, my. That’s quite the change in tune for a man who has opposed any increase in taxes and who, in fact, introduced a bill to abolish the IRS.

But he’s not alone in jumping from the Grover Norquist ship of fools, as Reuters pointed out earlier in the week:

Prominent American anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist on Monday insisted that his movement was as strong as ever and that Congress would withstand pressure to raise taxes even if more Republican lawmakers are spurning his anti-tax pledge.

A vast majority of elected Republicans have signed Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge,” launched in 1986, which commits them to voting against tax increases, and it became a sort of litmus test among U.S. conservatives.

But the new House of Representatives, which takes office in January, has 16 Republicans who so far have not signed the pledge, up from six in the outgoing Congress. One new Republican senator, Jeff Flake, also has not signed.  

This is a required shift from Republicans if they want to save themselves from permanent obscurity. They’re going to have to dump their ideology in favor of actual governing.

We’ll see how long it lasts…