'No one is caving," Grover Norquist says emphatically and repeatedly when we meet this week in his office in the nation's capital. By "no one" he means congressional Republicans, and by "caving" he means surrendering to Barack Obama's call for tax increases. Republicans are facing an avalanche of pressure from the White House, the media and even many on Wall Street to abandon their antitax principles to avoid a "fiscal cliff."

Mr. Norquist, who runs the influential advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, finds himself smack in the middle of the political fight in Washington over whether taxes will rise on investors and businesses next year, a move he believes would cripple the Republican Party and could plunge the economy into another recession.

He rattles off a list of reasons Republicans won't give in. If taxes rise on everyone next year because of a stalemate, he says, "who are you going to believe wants taxes to go up? Obama doesn't have credibility on keeping your taxes down; Republicans do."

And don't forget: "Nothing has changed on the chess board since Barack Obama agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts two years ago. Exactly the same players. Republicans still control the House and Democrats still control the White House and the Senate." Then he delivers the clincher: "For 20 years Democrats have tried over and over to trick Republicans into breaking the pledge. It hasn't happened. This isn't my first rodeo."