The chancellor added that he would increase the child tax credit by £25 a year from next April, which comes on top of the £150 increase pledged in last July's budget, with a further increase of £25 in 2010.
And American officials say that the Obama administration is certain to press countries to fulfill, or even increase, pledges for personnel and equipment for the NATO mission in Afghanistan, long a point of tension among allies.
I thought up the no-tax-increase pledge when I was 14 years old.
Officials at the organization dispute that and say they quickly realized they had a problem when Ms. Scozzafava balked at signing a no-tax-increase pledge that is a staple of House Republican campaigns.
Re "For Tax Pledge and Its Author, a Test of Time" (front page, Nov. 20), about Republican legislators struggling with the implications of having signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax-increase pledge: First, signing such a pledge is irresponsible.
A spokesman for Grover Norquist, who as leader of Americans for Tax Reform is the author of a no-tax-increase pledge that scores of Congressional Republicans have signed, expressed ambivalence about the cut.
But if you know anything about the federal budget, you know that there's a very good answer to his question — an answer that clearly demonstrates just how extremist that no-tax-increase pledge really is.
For 25 years, Mr. Norquist has demanded that every Republican running for office anywhere sign a no-tax-increase pledge, which every G.O.P. presidential candidate and virtually every Republican member of Congress has done.
Back then he signed Grover Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge, something that Mr. Van Koevering, a friend and political adviser to the congressman, said he would advise against doing now.
Me, too!" She noted recently, "I'm particularly proud to have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge" — a no-tax-increase pledge put forward by Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington lobbying group — "the day I announced my candidacy, something Mr. Campbell has refused to do".
