Brown, who used a South Boston diner yesterday for a round of brief, 15-minutesit-down interviews with Massachusetts reporters, sought to paint himself as a bipartisan, moderate Republican.
He even seemed to leave the door open in the future to move away from his no-new-taxes pledge when he said was open to raising tax rates in an overhaul of the federal tax system.
“If you want to raise rates or do something as part of overall tax reform, I am all ears,’’ Brown said as he sipped a whipped-cream covered hot chocolate at Mul’s diner on West Broadway.
A spokesman who was later asked to clarify the senator’s anti-tax position said it will remain in place until Congress “can show that it will manage taxpayers’ hard-earned money responsibly.’’
Grover Norquist - president of Americans for Tax Reform, who initiated the no-new-taxes pledge that Brown and 40 other Republican senators have signed - said Brown’s statement does not violate that commitment.
Asked about the opening Brown left himself by tying his pledge to congressional tightening of fiscal policies, Norquist chuckled. “That is not on the list of things that keeps me awake at night,’’ he said.
While he touted himself as the most bipartisan senator, Brown did not hesitate yesterday to draw on Republican talking points when he accused the Democrats of stirring class strife with their call to raise rates on wealthy taxpayers in order to ease some of the cuts that both parties agree are needed to deal with the federal deficit.
He said the Democratic efforts are aimed “to single out particular classes of people and to start this class warfare thing.’’
“I don’t know when we started to demonize success in this country,’’ Brown said.
