Remember when The Daily Show destroyed anti-tax guru Grover Norquist with a think tank of twelve-year olds? In that segment, a group of kids were asked about the feasibility of pledging to never raise taxes under any circumstances, even if the country needed to. The group of twelve-year olds agreed that Norquist’s pledge is irresponsible and damaging to the nation. It seems that adults are now following in the lead of these children. Republicans such as Steve King (R-IA), Tim Johnson (R-IL), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Charles Boustany (R-LA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), Frank Wolf (R-VA), among many others have all blasted the pledge, and earlier this week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush also rejected the Norquist pledge.
The general consensus among this group of Republicans is that the Norquist pledge ties the hands of members of Congress, preventing the necessary compromise that moves the country forward. Such a pledge also creates dead-lock and fierce partisanship that puts the nation in danger as it did during the debt ceiling debate last year when Republicans refused to accept any plan that included even the slightest tax increase on the wealthy. Even closing tax loopholes has been rejected by Republicans. Jeb Bush told the House Budget Committee that by signing such a pledge, Republicans have “outsourced their principles” and are beholden to one man instead of the American people as a whole.
This didn’t sit well with Grover Norquist, who promptly went on the Situation Room on CNN to whine about Jeb Bush’s remarks, saying that Bush “stepped in it” and insulted Mitt Romney, who has signed the pledge.
Grover Norquist: “[Bush] went on to kind of insult Governor Romney because Governor Romney has made a written commitment to the American people saying, ‘when I get to Washington I’m not going to raise taxes. The problem is too much spending and we’ll reform government and we’re not going raise taxes, so when I go and see a problem in Washington like Obama’s overspending, I’m not going to raise taxes, I’m going to reduce spending.’ And unfortunately what Jeb Bush said was that that was outsourcing his principles.”
Here’s the video:
As most sane elected officials will say, raising taxes is sometimes necessary to help solve the problems of the nation. Even Ronald Reagan raised taxes eleven times to deal with debt and deficit issues. Refusing to even consider tax increases is a dangerous policy stance, especially when spending cuts alone will not solve the nation’s debt crisis. The only spending problem this country has is on defense. What this country really has is a revenue problem. The Bush Tax Cuts alone have robbed the government of trillions of crucial revenues that would pay for the many programs Republicans seek to destroy.
Grover Norquist is an unelected official who doesn’t care that a majority of Americans want to raise taxes. This makes Mitt Romney all the more dangerous because he will be controlled by Norquist. This is, of course, what Norquist has always wanted after all. During a CPAC speech earlier this year Norquist suggested that conservatives elect a President who will be a puppet. If Mitt Romney is elected President, the will of the American people won’t matter because Norquist will be the puppet master.
I agree with ncc9389. And Grover needs to think about the power that the bush family still has. They can squash you like the bug your are, Goober. Do we need a constitutional amendment to keep special oaths out of politics? Soon, more repugs will stand up and renounce you. You don’t have the funds to defeat them unless Rove and Koch and Perry do it for you.
Hmmm. Let’s see now.
There is simply no data to support the supposition that providing disproportionately huge tax cuts for the top 2% of the wealthiest people results in job creation or other significant economic growth.
Enter the Congressional Republican think tank: since the currently provided huge tax breaks for the wealthy clearly have had no stimulating effect on job growth, let’s conclude that we need to further extend said tax cuts indefinitely in order to stimulate job growth.
In fact, the only result that the GOP truly expects is the one that will occur — the rich will get richer at the expense of everyone else.
Suggestions that tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy will stimulate job growth is simply their cover, their disingenuous talking point designed to try to sell their Reaganomic bill of goods to the public. Ultra-wealthy Americans made a major investment in the Republican Party during the 2010 mid-term elections. The GOP is simply carrying out the job for which they have been duly paid.
The federal tax burden of the average American taxpayer is at its lowest in the past 50 years. In addition, many corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes due to gaping loopholes that their well-paid tax attorneys are only too happy to exploit.
From Politifact: “The Tax Foundation, an independent tax-research group in Washington, has found that the average taxpayer’s combined tax burden accounted for 26.6 percent of income in 2009 and 26.9 percent in 2010, the lowest since 1965. And according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, total federal tax receipts were 14.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, the lowest percentage since 1950.”
The combined effect has been a dramatic decrease in federal revenue, which has made a significant contribution to the current federal deficit and rising national debt.
Despite all of this, to most Republicans, the corporate and individual tax rates are simply not low enough. They seem to regard the federal budget as a drunken game of limbo — how low can you go … before you become so unstable that you simply collapse.
Don’t pee on my shoe and call it trickle-down economics.
He talk about the stupid pledge as if it’s a good thing!!
“But Romney has promised you ” he whines.
Well that’s all the more reason to NOT vote for Romney!
like another poster said, “it’s like promising to never take a raise no matter how bad things gets”
Sorry I forgot your name, but that was great!! Thanks.
The people who watch fox news are so gullible! They make it so easy to lie to them.
I would love to see this guy thrown in jail as a traitor to our nation.
Grover Norquist is a delusional individual. He refuses to see that his idol raised taxes 11 times, he is still in denial. Anyone who signs his or anyones pledge should not be elected to any office.