After yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported on work toward a bipartisan deal on the budget, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform sent three Republican senators a letter noting that the deal, as outlined in the Journal article, would violate their pledge not to raise taxes. The response letter from Senators Chambliss, Coburn, and Crapo strongly suggests that the senators will not support a deal that raises taxes on net. Instead they want a bill that raises revenue only by increasing economic growth. It is hard to believe (a) that tax-policy changes would generate as much increased growth and thus revenue as the dealmakers are aiming for or (b) that Democrats would ever sign a deal that includes no net tax increases and large reductions in planned spending.
Grover Norquist got everyone to sign a "no tax increases" pledge without requiring them to sign a "no spending increases" pledge. Look where that's got us. Nice work Grover.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo Mr. Ponnuru,
Are you saying the only alternative is gridlock until someone gets 60 votes in the Senate and a supermajority in the House, and/or a new President?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGrover also reminded the Republican Senators what happened the last time they made "backroom deals" with the Democrats - they got burnt big time. He advised the Republicans to only do business with the Dems in the public spotlight. Good advice.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSuppose, and I realize this would never actually happen, that they reached a deal to cut the budget deficit this year by $400 billion, with $200 billion coming from (real, true, honest-to-goodness) spending cuts and $200 billion from tax increases. Would that be a worthwhile trade?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe need Republicans with the courage to stand up to Grover Norquist.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is simply NOT POSSIBLE to solve our problems without increasing revenue along with cutting expenses. Any GOP member that refuses to consider any tax increases must immediately be asked: 1) How many hundreds of billions are you proposing cutting form the defense budget? 2) How many hundreds of billions from Medicare and Medicaid?
Unless they give you a realistic answer (several hundred billion to each), they are not authentic in their desire to find a solution, they are only pandering and need to be ignored
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGrover Norquist is bad for the country. By Norquist's logic, we could get a balanced budget compromise that was 99% spending cuts and a 1% net tax hike, and Norquist would view this as a solemn breach of his stupid pledge.
Enough. Taxes are irrelevant - the only thing that matters is spending. If we tax less than we spend, this is just a tax hike on future workers. The goal of these GOP Senators should be to cut spending as much as is practicable while preserve our defense capabilities and social safety net. On taxes, they should aim to lower marginal rates and eliminate tax expenditures. This is a goal that all conservatives should be rooting for. And if Norquist continues standing in their way, we should recognize him for what is: an opponent of good governance.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMany of the people claiming to be fiscal conservatives are simply against taxes no matter what the context or consequences. I don't care for their policy mix, but that's something reasonable people can disagree on. What is frustrating is the dishonesty; advocating a policy that is clearly in one's self interest primarily by presenting arguments as if the policy was in the national interest. In a democracy, the national interest is a negotiation and the national interest necessarily includes an aggregation of how all people view the national interest. Yet, ideologues like Norquist are able to shut down avenues for compromise. It's inherently disrespectful to assert that ~half the country doesn't understand their own interests and refuse to negotiate with them. The left is also fond of framing their self-interest in terms of the national interest, but let's be honest, the right has a hard time acknowledging that there is a difference in the first place. Given how the conservative political movement (claims to) respect the founders, one might expect some respect for the founder's having conceptually separated self-interest from the national interest, as well as their expectation that Government officials serve the national interest. Not Grover Norquist.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGrover must be so excited right now. He's got government so close to his aim of flushing it down a tub. Tax burden on Americans is the lowest its been in over 50 years (External Link
). That was when the top tax rate on the wealthy was 90%. Now it's 35%, but with existing loopholes our wealthy don't pay any more than those in the middle class. Our huge corporations do the same. So revenues are incredibly low. Wonderful, Grover. You're very close to destroying the federal government and you're elated. Time to raise the tax burden in a responsible way to fulfill our responsibility.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRepublicans negotiating in bad faith. Just like the Republicans who "negotiated" with Max Baucus, stalling the health reform bill until the GOP could organize against it. Republicans just aren't honest people.
How else can we explain why they suspended the pay-for-it rules before voting to repeal the health reform bill?
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