Romney Promotes No-Tax Hike Pledge

Mitt Romney, trying to press his case on an issue near and dear to New Hampshire Republicans, put up a new radio ad today that boasts that he signed on the dotted line of a pledge not to raise taxes. "I'm proud to be the only major candidate for president to sign the tax pledge. The others have not," he says in the ad. "I signed the tax pledge because I want everyone to know where I stand. We've got to get taxes down and grow our economy." Romney -- who was the first to sign the pledge but has since been followed by second-tier GOP contenders Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee -- also reminds primary voters of his promises to eliminate the estate tax and roll back income tax rates. Romney does not mention, however, that while campaigning for governor in Massachusetts in 2002, he refused to sign a similar pledge that his spokesman derided as "government by gimmickry" -- a fact gleefully pointed out today by the campaign of rival Rudy Giuliani.Romney said in 2002 that while he opposed tax hikes, he did not want to sign anything to tie his hands in office. Once elected, he managed to dig the commonwealth out of a huge budget deficit without any across-the-board tax increases, though he did support assorted fee hikes and closings of what he called corporate tax loopholes. Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson have given similar reasons to Romney in 2002 in refusing to sign the no-tax pledge from Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reforms. In a debate last month in New Hampshire, Giuliani said he would not sign the pledge as "a matter of principle." The former New York mayor and Romney have been going at each other hammer and tong on the tax issue since Thursday, when Romney sharply criticized Giuliani for opposing a presidential line-item veto and for supporting a commuter tax.