taxes
Spending Cuts Only, No Revenue Increases. How Did That Happen?
Jul 24 2011
The steadfast Republican alliance not to raise taxes, or even close a loophole that avoids taxes, is not a pact between the members of the House or Senate as you might expect. It is instead a pledge to a K Street lobbyist, the most powerful man in Washington you may have never heard of named Grover Norquist. By signing his pledge, fully 236 current members of the House and 41 senators have signed away their freedom to vote their consciences or their constituents' wishes on penalty of Norquist's organization’s launching an assault in their home state or district come election time to starve them of funds and see to it that they will never serve in Congress again.
Grover Norquist heads Americans for Tax Reform. 
His mission is and has been for decades (he was appointed to run that organization by George Bush Sr.) to make certain upon their taking office that no Republican Congressperson ever votes for a tax increase of any sort — not even diminishment of a tax deduction. Here is the pledge all are required to sign:
I, _________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the __________ district of the State of ____________ and to the American people that I will:
ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and
TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates,
Signed __________________
That’s it. But thus does this unelected Harvard graduate at this moment throttle any contemplation of taxes as one side of an agreement to raise the debt limit.
But this time it is backfiring on him, but one so rigid doesn't see it that way, insisting, as he does in an op-ed recently in The New York Times that there be only spending cuts. If you've ever heard of Norquist, it is probably this infamous quote about the federal government:
"I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
By blocking any tax related revenue increase as part of the debit ceiling deal, he is foregoing a plan that could include some $4 trillion in government bathwater that could be headed down the drain.
Norquist has made tax increases so toxic that Democrats, too, have bought into their being loathsome, witness universal agreement on their part that only the top bracket tax rate should be increased.
Certain members of Congress have pushed back, notably Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. When Coburn wrote a stinging letter to Norquist accusing him of "defending wasteful spending" by resisting the elimination of the ethanol subsidy, Norquist's letter to The New York Times claimed that Coburn "has signed in writing a pledge to the voters of Oklahoma — not to me". In the op-ed piece that followed he said "the commitment is to the people of their states and the nation". How disingenuous, to put it ever so politely. Did the voters of Oklahoma ask Coburn to sign the pledge? Did the nation ask the 276 others?
Whether conservative or liberal, it can only be called reprehensible that Republicans for their part have cowered before this man and signed his McCarthy-style loyalty oath. And for that matter President Obama is to blame for his irresponsible promise not to raise taxes on all but the top brackets. Why? Because he made that promise on the campaign trail, before knowing the state of the union in all its complexity, thus putting his winning the election before the security of the country.
We say this not because we necessarily want taxes to rise, but because it is the responsibility of all elected officials not to make ironclad pledges before the fact, before knowing what the nation may face. And the country now faces enormous challenges and huge debts to foreign countries that could bankrupt us.
Your representatives in Congress must keep all options open and certainly owe no fealty to Grover Norquist. Let your Congressman know that his or her cowardice is disgraceful, that they owe their loyalty to you, not some an absolutist martinet on K Street.
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