Next Pledge for Congress Should Be Never Default

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, has been enormously effective at pressuring political candidates to put their no-new-taxes rhetoric in writing. Now that the Tea Party faction among House Republicans has pushed the government almost to the brink of default, I wonder if that same tactic could come in handy for politicians who believe it's wrong to use the threat of a sovereign default as a bargaining chip.

The way that Americans for Tax Reform describes its taxpayer protectionpledge, "candidates and incumbents solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases." The pledge is to the voters in a candidate's district. It goes like this: