Norquist: GOP Can Vote For The AIG-Bonus Tax -- If We Cut More Taxes, Too
Grover Norquist, the top anti-tax activist in the Republican Party, has given ABC an answer about whether Republicans can vote for the AIG-bonus tax and still be in accordance with the anti-tax pledge that the vast majority of them have signed with Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform.
The answer: Yes, you can -- but only if it includes additional offsetting cuts in taxes or spending, too. Norquist seems to acknowledge here that the AIG tax is itself a kind of spending decrease -- the government is taking back money it already spent -- but he wants more tax decreases, too.
"If your goal is to recoup the resources that you've given people that you hadn't thought would be spent this way, you can make it not a tax increase simply by having an offsetting tax cut on honest taxpayers," Norquist explained. "Or you could do the same thing by cutting the amount of money that you were going to give AIG in the next tranche that they'll demand, so you can have the withdrawal of the resources done in less spending."
He does get in a nice populist note: "However, I would prefer to raise the money by raising taxes on the idiot Senators and Congressmen who voted to give the money to AIG in the first place."
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OR we could take back the money from the Senators and Congressmen who voted against the stimulus!
How ridiculous.
March 19, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
These people are just too stupid!
March 19, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where is story after story about the Red Cross Torture Report? The MSM is fanning the flames over $165M in bonus pay but the Red Cross release got barely a mention. Imagine the outrage the MSM could whip up if they gave AIG bonus level coverage to the Bush Administration war crimes?
But of course Lord Cheney cannot be criticized, let alone tried, convicted and imprisoned. So let's bury that story and pretend nobody wants DOJ investigations.
March 19, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, you are right. I'm actually burned out on this bonus thing. They have been fanning this flame for days. What's new about it? Where's the story? It's like a two liner, let it go, and move on. All this focus is doing is setting the ground work for making it more difficult for obama to get more help into the economy if needed. That is definitely not a good thing.
Now why isn't there any reporting on the torture or war crimes? Why isn't there someone in the media who spliced the lies from darth vader's interview with the facts and paint him out to be the liar and criminal that he is?
Oh, that's right, it's the liberal media monster at work again. Pathetic.
March 19, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because if more than a fractional minority gave a shit what happened to these people, George W. Bush wouldn't have been elected a second time?
I'm not saying it doesn't merit more coverage in my opinion, but I have to believe that most people just do not care.
March 19, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love it when Norquist hits the news. It's sort of like getting Jed Clampett to make high flown pronouncements from his front porch.
March 19, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whenever I start to worry about Dem prospects in 2010 I seek out the latest story about the utter cluelessness of the Rethugs, and I feel better immediately.
March 19, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to see Norquist acknowledging that their complaints about deficits are all BS, and being "fiscally conservative" just means "taxes always go down and deficits don't matter."
March 19, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fantasy : an obituary telling us that Grover Norquist has drowned in his own bathtub.
March 19, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Auto erotic asphyxiation gone wrong, no doubt.
March 19, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
He would for sure die doing that - while looking at graphs of federal income tax set to zero ... S C H W I N G !!
March 19, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Norquist drown in New Orlean... maybe a dream I had?
March 19, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess it's just me, but this whole "let's tax something because we want to express our 'outrage'" is just so much nonsense and a rather dangerous precedent. That congress should be allowed to take money away from these folks for no more reason than they want to look sympathetic to their constituents should give everyone pause.
Don't get me wrong, I think it highly unfair that the some that helped to cause this fiasco are getting bonuses for their, at best incompetence, at worst criminality, but maybe that should have been thought of before the money was given. Better yet, I'd rather see congress spend their time with investigating possible criminality and bring about charges to truly hold those responsible accountable.
Again, just my 2¢.
March 19, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree - it could be the start of a very bad trend.
For example : tax movie stars that have sordid personal lives.
This could get out of hand. I am not joking. Populist outrage made into instant law is not good, generally.
March 19, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. If those movie stars are taking public money to bail out stinking movies (maybe it would have saved Waterworld or Ishtar?), then their sordid lives might be open terrain.
So long as the hinge of this taxation revolves around first taking tax dollars as some form of economic life-support, I don't see much of a slippery slope anywhere at hand for movie, rock or reality stars.
March 19, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is he not in prison yet?
March 19, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, Grover.
Your entire philosophy has been consigned to the latrine of history.
Gubment is now big enough to drown your fat ass in an oversized bathtub.
March 19, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Norquist belongs in jail, not being quoted in the media.
March 19, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've asked it before and I'll no doubt ask it again: why does anyone pay attention to or care about what Grover Norquist says? His policies and rhetoric have been empirically shown to be nothing more than empty baloney. He has nothing else to talk about other than "cut taxes!"; he has no ideas, no constituency, and no basis for his views. He should be in the same outer darkness in which the followers of Lyndon LeRouche inhabit.
Burn out the evil from within your midst, the Torah says. Norquist is right up near the top of my list.
March 19, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares what this jerk says?
March 19, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where was Grover "drown the government in a bathtub" Norquist when the Bush administration removed Iraq funding from the budget? And the budget ballooned anyway.
We know what you're doing, Grover.
What a despicable little oinker you are.
March 19, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grover Norquist is public enemy number one, to my way of thinking. He's the incestuous stepfather of Republican deficits, the chief promulgator of the flat tax the rich and super rich have enjoyed since the Reagan era, the broody hen of the kind of moral hazard that's peculiar to the kind of people for whom just millions of dollars means poverty, people who require hundreds of millions if not billions in order to find their lives acceptable and still demand the end to estate taxes.
March 19, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"... simply by having an offsetting tax cut on honest taxpayers,"
As opposed to?
March 19, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forgive my ignorance, but I laughed when I watched Countdown last night and Olbermann mentioned that many of the Repubs sign a tax pledge to Grover Norquist. I thought it was a joke.
I should know better....
March 20, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
why on earth does anyone listen to Grover at all?
I don't get why he is even relevant after all the jackass has done.
bah... ignore the fool
March 20, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink