Ross took on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge last night at AEI. Noah Kristula-Green summarizes the terms of the debate:

Norquist was clear: the pledge has been effective at getting Republicans to hold a hard line against tax increases and that the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress are committed to the principles of the pledge. This is true! Sure spending has not been brought far enough down, but now it’s clear that taxes are indeed off the table. Douthat countered that when you look at the record, the pledge has done nothing to actually restrain the growth of government and it does not actually protect the best interests of the taxpayers. As he stated: “There’s this nagging problem that conservatives keep cutting taxes without cutting spending, and that spending has sort of blown up into a sort of world historical challenge facing the United States.”

Douthat follows up with some praise for his opponent: