In a September 25 editorial, the New York Times criticized the GOP's “Pledge to America,” noting that “Extravagant promises and bluster are the stuff of campaign rhetoric, but the House Republicans' 'Pledge to America' goes far beyond the norm,” and that “Its breathless mimicry of the Declaration of Independence ... would be ludicrous, if these were not destructively polarized times.”

The editorial described the “pledge” as “a bid to co-opt the Tea Party by a Republican leadership that wants to sound insurrectionist but is the same old Washington elite.”

The Times also pointed out that the GOP plan did not address entitlement programs or replacing “revenue that would be lost from permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts,” noting that "[t]heir record at all of these things is dismal." The editorial concluded:

Americans are right to be worried and even angry about the bad economy. And they are right to demand that Washington do a lot more to revive employment now and start to reduce the deficit soon. But these are hard problems built up over eight years of mainly Republican leadership. The pledge takes the country backward -- a place no one should want to go.