On Tuesday night, The Daily Show took on tax guru Grover Norquist, the guy who runs Americans for Tax Reform and the guy who has paralyzed Republicans from compromising when it comes to taxation. Samantha Bee sat down with Norquist to talk about his tax plan.
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NORQUIST: My team is winning and it can be taught to Harry Reid. He wanted a $2.5 trillion tax increase last year and he didn’t get it.
BEE: Your team is winning? It’s like you came up with this whole idea when you were twelve.
NORQUIST: It was something I came up with when I was twelve, to get a teacher to…
BEE: I’m sorry, what did you say? You came up with this idea when you were…
NORQUIST: Seventh grade.
BEE: …in seventh grade?
BEE (off camera): Yes, the entire federal government is paralyzed because of a document, written by a twelve year old, in 1968.
Then The Daily Show rounded up their own group of twelve year olds and asked them about the Norquist pledge to never raise taxes. In short, these twelve year olds were not impressed.
Here’s the video:
Norquist’s pledge is so ridiculous that even kids see right though it. It’s something that no politician should ever sign because Congress has a responsibility to raise taxes when the nation requires it. And the economy certainly requires it now.
“To impose taxes when the public exigencies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people.”
~President James Monroe
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Norquist IS the most dangerous man in America. If overt action threatening the welfare of the United States and its interests is considered terrorism (and it certainly seems to be,) then Grover Norquist is THE Number One Terrorist, with Al-Qaeda and the radical jihadists being a distant second. It is his pledge, dreamed up when he was far too immature to see or consider consequences, which has created the economic nightmare we are in.
Here is how Norquist sees it: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57327816/the-pledge-grover-norquists-hold-on-the-gop/
I CALL FOR THE ARREST OF GROVER NORQUIST ON CHARGES OF TREASON.
I call for the revocation of the Norquist Pledge, and censure of ALL those signatory to it. Over-the-top Right Wing activity REQUIRES equal or greater over-the-top response from the Left, else the Right just does it again. And again.
So think Von Clausewitz, not Lao Tzu. There are times for subtlety, this is NOT one of those times. I understand, I empathize. You’re Democrats. You try to be inclusive, because that’s the nature of good people, and you want to be the “good guys.” But when the Right NEVER moves any direction but backward, you MUST make a stand. And the ONLY way to reverse the trend is to make the stand from a secure, solid Left perspective. Great Society Left, New Deal Left, Re-constructionist Left – and then go further, to leave some negotiating room.
Use taxes, primarily from business and the wealthy because they are paying FAR less than their fair share, AND because they are the ones who ultimately benefit most from it, to repair infrastructure, update our telecommunications backbone (we INVENTED it, and now we are among the slowest of developed nations,) rebuild inner cities (and do it RIGHT this time. not ghettos.) Use the unwillingly unemployed labor force to do the labor – not just sweat labor, but design, develop, construct and support, and pay them a fair living wage (with health care. Sorry GOP.) And throw those who would turn America into a fascist plutocracy into the deepest dungeon of Leavenworth. No country-club prison time, REAL jail. Perhaps even into asylums. They have not only repeatedly committed treason, they have continued to show clinically depraved indifference toward the people – not only in America, but in the world, where their sweatshops and forced labor factories create their massive profits, while honest pay for honest work is ridiculed. Remember, they call most humans ‘peasants’ in insurance documents: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/dead-peasant-life-insurance-policies-fair/story?id=8724327#.T06GWPWibAw
I call upon the Democratic Party to man up, stand up for what you KNOW is right and throw off the Corporate chains that bind you. Don’t worry, the sharks will come right back after you clean up the Republicans’ mess. You won’t lose – much – in payoffs.
And now in that brief time when they don’t own you, do what is right and call out those whose actions ARE destroying the nation. Impeach the Supremes, and start investigations into the treasonous activities of the Kochs, AFP, the Fox Propaganda Network and the entire apparatus of plutocratic fascist control.
(BTW, those that believe Fox and think some of what I have said is not true, and wish to sue for libel, remember – and Canada agrees with this:
Untruth IS the Fox Mission Statement – “Fox News, creating an Alternate Reality for the Betterment of Billionaires Since 1987…”)