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GOP governors consider tax hikes

DENVER, April 21 (UPI) -- Republican governors in states like Colorado, Indiana and Nevada are reconsidering their standard anti-tax stance in the face of budget crunches.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens supports a plan to ease restrictions on how the state can collect revenue, the Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday, while former Bush administration budget director Mitch Daniels proposed new taxes about a week after becoming governor of Indiana.

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Some observers said this deviance from a standard Republican ideal may just be necessary in the current budget climate. Meanwhile, opponents said the push for new taxes marks the governors' lack of ideological sincerity, and some conservatives said the flip may have long-term consequences, the paper said.

"The fiscal straitjackets a lot of states have been in have the tendency to show the true colors of governors," said Stephen Slivinski, a budget analyst for the conservative Cato Institute.

"Those Republican governors who raised taxes or tried to raise them will never move up in national office," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

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