GOP reluctant to sign anti-spending pledge unlike anti-tax pledge

[Elmore Furth]

Looks like 'tax-cut and spend' Republicanism is alive and well.

Republicans aren’t racing to sign on the dotted line of a new anti-spending pledge, even as dozens of conservative grass-roots groups and tea party kingmaker Sen. Jim DeMint demand it.

Of the leading Republican presidential candidates, only former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has signed the so-called Cut, Cap, Balance pledge; 12 of 47 Republicans in the Senate are on board; and in the House, only 22 out of 242 party members have come forward to support it.

By contrast, nearly every Republican serving in Congress — 41 in the Senate and 235 in the House — has signed Grover Norquist’s influential pledge to oppose all efforts to raise taxes.

GOP suffers from pledge fatigue