Grover Norquist

Norquist: I Never Compared Schumer To The Nazis

Sahil Kapur | May 24, 2012, 5:20PM

Grover Norquist

After an aggressive rebuke from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Thursday, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist told TPM that he never actually compared the senator's legislation to actions taken by the Nazis.

"My criticism of our friend Mr. Schumer was that his bill was similar to the German legislation from the '30s," Norquist said in a phone interview. "He's the guy who yelled Nazi. I didn't say Nazi. I didn't say National Socialist."

The Nazi analogy was characterized in a story by The Hill last Saturday, after Norquist told the paper of Schumer's citizenship tax-dodging bill: "I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the '70s and in South Africa as well. He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German."

Norquist, the president of Americans For Tax Reform, says his reference was to a 1931 law instituted by the pre-Nazi Centre Party, which imposed an exit tax on those who fled Germany. The Nazis continued to implement the law.

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John Boehner

Dems Twist Knife In Battle Over Forsaking Citizenship To Dodge Taxes

Sahil Kapur | May 22, 2012, 6:00AM

Sensing a political opportunity, Democrats are working to back Republicans into a corner on legislation designed to punish Americans who renounce their citizenship to avoid paying taxes, as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin did.

The legislation, unveiled last Thursday by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bob Casey (D-PA), provoked over-the-top conservative pushback, with Grover Norquist and the Wall Street Journal editorial board comparing it to the actions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), conscious of not being portrayed as defending jet-setting elites who seek to avoid their legal obligations, said Sunday that Saverin's actions were "outrageous." He told ABC's "This Week" he may support the Schumer-Casey bill, but hedged that he wasn't sure it's necessary.

Now, with an apparent rift emerging, Democrats are twisting the knife.

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Eduardo Saverin

Conservatives Liken Dems' Bill Banning Citizenship Tax-Dodging To Nazis, Soviets

Sahil Kapur | May 21, 2012, 9:10AM

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH)

New Democratic-led legislation aimed at penalizing those who would renounce their U.S. citizenship to dodge taxes has provoked fiery criticism from influential conservatives and is putting Republican leaders in a politically precarious situation.

Inspired by the actions of Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who renounced his citizenship ahead of a large tax payment associated with the company's much-ballyhooed initial public offering, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bob Casey (D-PA) unveiled a bill Thursday to force such tax-dodgers to pay a 30 percent tax rate on all future U.S. investments and ban them from ever setting foot in the country again.

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist compared it to the actions of Nazi Germany.

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Super Committee

Obama Issues Veto Threat On Bush Tax Cuts

Brian Beutler | November 22, 2011, 9:40AM

President Barack Obama

President Obama has threatened to veto any legislation that attempts to eliminate the automatic penalties for Super Committee failure. But on January 1, 2013 -- the same day the automatic, across the board spending cuts are scheduled to take effect -- all of the Bush tax cuts are set to expire. And the White House plans to use the threat of full expiration the exact same way they're using the threat of sequestration -- to force Republicans to accept a higher tax burden on wealthy Americans.

"He won't sign a full extension," said one Senior Administration Official at a White House background briefing for reporters on the Super Committee.

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Scott Brown

Massachusetts Dems Press Scott Brown To Abandon Norquist

Brian Beutler | November 21, 2011, 2:53PM

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)

Massachusetts Democrats are using gridlock on the Super Committee as an opening to drive a wedge between Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and the GOP's leading anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

"Scott Brown talks the talk on looking for bipartisan compromise, but he doesn't walk the walk," said Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair John Walsh, in a statement provided to TPM. "For Brown, asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share has always been off the table because of his blind allegiance to the Republican Party's agenda. Abandoning Norquist's extremist pledge that protects giveways to Big Oil and other special interests would go a long way toward showing that Scott Brown is serious about taking a balanced approach that asks the wealthiest Americans to share the burden of getting our nation's fiscal house in order instead of dumping it all on senior citizens and the middle class."

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Super Committee

Grover Norquist And The Super Committee -- Who's Really In Charge?

Brian Beutler | November 15, 2011, 4:52PM

Grover Norquist

About a week ago, Republicans on the Super Committee offered Democrats a plan they themselves claimed would raise new tax revenues. Setting aside specifics, Democrats treated it as a crack in the dam -- the first indication the GOP's alliance with anti-tax activists was starting to crumble.

Democrats ultimately rejected it. But so too did Grover Norquist, which suggests it really did violate his pledge (which most Republicans have taken) never to raise effective tax rates. Fast forward to Monday, Norquist told The Hill, "I've talked to the House leadership and the Senate leadership. They're not going to be passing any tax increases.... If Republicans raise taxes now, they don't win the Senate, and if Republicans raise taxes now they might not keep the House."

Logically, this means one of four things:

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Obamacare

How Grover Norquist Anti-Tax Pledge Could Foil GOP's Latest Obamacare Repeal Push

Brian Beutler | November 9, 2011, 3:28PM

Grover Norquist

Here's one example of how Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge boxes in Republican members, even on issues near and dear to the GOP base.

The details here were first reported by Inside Health Policy but it illustrates a point Republicans on the deficit Super Committee are all too familiar with. Starting in 2014, the health care law will automatically start providing tax credits for individual market health care policies -- the subsidies that will help uninsured people buy coverage.

Republicans want to stop the money from going out before it starts, so they've introduced legislation to repeal the subsidies. Except, since these are tax credits and not direct spending, repealing them could count as a tax increase as far as the taxpayer protection pledge is concerned.

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Super Committee

Report: Super Committee GOPers Agree To Violate Norquist Pledge...With A Catch

Brian Beutler | November 7, 2011, 4:12PM

Grover Norquist

Super Committee Republicans are floating a trial balloon that would produce new tax revenue, in apparent contravention of Grover Norquist's taxpayer protection pledge, according to Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore.

But as Moore explains that the offer has a catch:

One positive development on taxes taking shape is a deal that could include limiting tax deductions, perhaps by capping write-offs on charities, state and local taxes, and mortgage interest payments as a percentage of each tax filer's gross income. That idea was introduced on these pages by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.

In exchange, Democrats would agree to make the Bush income-tax cuts permanent. This would mean preventing top rates from going to 42% from 35% today, and keeping the capital gains and dividend tax rate at 15%, as opposed to plans to raise them to 23.8% or higher after 2013.

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Grover Norquist

Boehner: Grover Who?!

Brian Beutler | November 3, 2011, 12:04PM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

A simple yes or no would have sufficed, but when House Speaker John Boehner was asked whether anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist was a positive influence on his caucus, he feigned ignorance.

"It's not often I'm asked about some random person in America," he said.

The context here is that Republicans are gridlocking the deficit Super Committee because they've pledged publicly never to raise taxes -- a pledge Democrats say they'll have to break to get bipartisan support for cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

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Alan Simpson

Super Committee Republicans Get Earful Over Loyalty To Grover Norquist

Brian Beutler | November 2, 2011, 12:30PM

Grover Norquist

While Super Committee Democrats are pressed to accept unpopular, and illiberal proposals like raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 over several years, Republicans are under increasing pressure to cut Grover Norquist loose.

The well-funded anti-tax crusader has secured pledges from the vast majority of Republican members of Congress, including all six GOP members of the Super Committee, to never raise taxes on net. And that's the key reason the panel is deadlocked with just three weeks until its deadline.

Yesterday, at a public hearing, those six Republicans got an earful from one of their former colleagues -- retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY).

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Grover Norquist

GOP Rep. Denounces Norquist And His No New Taxes Pledge

Susan Crabtree | October 4, 2011, 6:34PM

Grover Norquist

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) unleashed a verbal fusillade on Anti-Tax Guru Grover Norquist Tuesday, calling him out as the main political force behind Washington gridlock.

Wolf took the House floor to lambaste Norquist's pledge, a promise not to raise taxes that all but six Republicans in Congress have signed, accusing him of using it to advance other pet issues that most Republicans -- if not most voters -- do not support.

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Grover Norquist

Norquist To Buffett: Send Government Your Money -- Here's The Envelope, You Pay For The Stamp

Brian Beutler | September 28, 2011, 1:03PM

Grover Norquist

Republicans and conservative operatives have become obsessed with the idea that wealthy liberals should prove their largesse not by making public arguments for higher taxes on people like themselves but by donating money to the U.S. Treasury.

This is the fiscal equivalent of the old critique that environmentalists should just buy hybrid cars and never fly anywhere instead of fighting for laws meant to combat climate change. It's silly, but it's combustible, and it exploded on Twitter and elsewhere after an Obama supporter in California this week asked the President to raise his taxes.

Anti-tax warrior Grover Norquist has turned this talking point into world class snark.

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Americans for Tax Reform

Grover Norquist: Obama's Basically Stalin

Thomas Lane | September 20, 2011, 6:04AM

Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin

Although he did so in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way, tax-hater extraordinaire Grover Norquist amped the "class warfare" rhetoric against President Obama's "Buffett Tax" all the way to eleven.

Shortly after the President announced his plans to adjust tax formulas and make the hyper-wealthy "pay their fair share," Americans For Tax Reform president Norquist tweeted, "Obamas [sic] "new" strategy to divide America: Get the Kulaks."

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Grover Norquist

Norquist Calls Sen. Murray 'The Lady From Washington' Who 'Doesn't Do Budgets'

Brian Beutler | August 18, 2011, 8:53AM

Grover Norquist

All six Republicans on the new deficit Super Committee have all kissed anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist's ring. So now he's training his sights on the six committee Democrats -- not always politely. Here's the New York Times.

All six Republicans on the committee have signed the pledge not to raise taxes dictated by Grover Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform. Now, Mr. Norquist said, he will focus on keeping the Democrats in line. "The Republicans are serious budget reformers; the lady from Washington," Mr. Norquist said of Mrs. Murray, "doesn't do budgets."

"The lady from Washington," is the only female member of Senate leadership in either party, and the second highest-ranking member, male or female, of the Senate Budget Committee.

Mitt Romney

Did Mitt Romney Raise Taxes Or 'Close Loopholes'?

Benjy Sarlin | August 12, 2011, 9:40AM

News that then-Governor Mitt Romney's office played up his predecessor's tax hikes to secure a better rating from Standard & Poor's may undercut his hardline anti-tax image. But the S&P story also revives a longstanding debate over Romney's own revenue raisers as governor, an issue that takes on greater significance than it did in 2008 thanks to the recent debt ceiling talks.

On Wednesday, Politico reported on a presentation Romney's office gave to S&P in 2004 touting the strength of the state's budget thanks in part to a 2002 tax increase that he opposed. The presentation also highlighted higher fees and newly closed loopholes that Romney championed himself. While Romney supporters have long argued these policies should not count as tax increases, critics have long insisted otherwise and the S&P story pushes the debate into the headlines once again.

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Super Committee

GOP Leaders Pick Conservative Members To Serve On Deficit Super Committee

Brian Beutler | August 10, 2011, 12:19PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have announced their selections to serve on the new so-called Super Committee -- the panel called for in the debt limit bill that's been tasked with reducing deficits by at least $1.2 trillion.

McConnell's picked his Whip, Jon Kyl (R-AZ), as well as conservative freshman Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), and arch-conservative Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Boehner tapped Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), chair of the GOP conference, and the caucus' top message man; Dave Camp (R-MI) chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which controls tax revenue; and Fred Upton (R-MI), whose powerful Energy and Commerce Committee has broad jurisdiction over just about everything other than taxes, but particularly health care.

As head of the majority party in the House of Representatives, Boehner was asked to name the committee's GOP co-chair, and for that he chose Hensarling -- an extremely conservative member who in recent weeks falsely characterized the debt limit fight as a consequence of spending policies enacted by President Obama and past Democratic congresses. By quite a ways, most existing debt is the result of GOP policies, or bipartisan initiatives like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hensarling served on President Obama's fiscal commission, headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, but ultimately opposed their recommendations, because they included higher revenues.

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Debt

Grover Norquist Backs The New Debt Deal

Thomas Lane | August 1, 2011, 6:00AM

Grover Norquist

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has at least one powerful ally in his latest effort to sell the GOP on a debt deal: tax hater extraordinaire, Grover Norquist.

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John Boehner

CIVIL WAR: GOP Coalition Splinters Into Open Conflict Over Debt Ceiling

Benjy Sarlin & Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 27, 2011, 6:00AM

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Speaker Boehner

The Republican leadership's efforts to avert a debt ceiling crisis with a two-tiered set of cuts is turning into the most divisive wedge issue the party has confronted since President Obama took over in 2009.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may have thought his face-saving plan, which he hoped to bring to the floor Wednesday, offered a path to victory. However, since treading upon it he's been beset from all sides. It's not just that the President is threatening to veto the bill, should it ever make it past the Senate; it's that Boehner's fellow conservatives are sniping at him with (not so) friendly fire. Now the vote he'd hoped to bring triumphantly to the floor Wednesday looks delayed until at least Thursday, and even then the outcome is uncertain.

That's because the GOP is teetering on the brink of a debt-based civil war. More traditional Republicans and big business types are desperate to avoid a recovery-crushing default. But their Tea Party colleagues are leading a rebellion of epic - perhaps even galactic - proportions. Cue the John Williams music and find out who stands where in this stand-off between the Establishment's storm-troopers and the Rebel Alliance.

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John Boehner

Why Boehner's Debt Limit Plan Will Have To Fail Before Endgame Becomes Clear

Brian Beutler | July 26, 2011, 5:17PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

High level discussions continue between Democrats and Republicans to make sure Congress raises the debt limit before the Treasury runs out of borrowing authority and has to slash public spending on a massive scale. But for the moment, we're in a period of repose. In public, few are willing to budge too far off their own party's plan to raise the debt limit. And members and aides are now believe that a viable solution won't emerge until one of the existing, partisan plans fails publicly.

In other words, things haven't moved a whole lot since yesterday. For the moment, most participants expect that the House GOP plan, authored by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will move first, and will fail, either in his own chamber or in the Senate. But they're now pessimistic that a workable plan will emerge before then, something party leaders were hoping against hope for yesterday.

"I think so -- probably that's the case," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

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Debt ceiling

Grover Norquist Backs Boehner Plan For Debt Ceiling

Benjy Sarlin | July 25, 2011, 6:21PM

One of the key figures in the debt ceiling fight, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, lent his seal of approval to Speaker Boehner's proposal to increase the debt ceiling with two separate spending cuts.

The key for Norquist and his group American For Tax Reform is the plan's lack of tax increases. The organization's no-tax pledge, signed by virtually every Republican lawmaker, is their primary means of influence and Norquist has stated that any deal that includes increased tax revenue -- even with much larger cuts -- would fail the test.

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Debt Ceiling

Bomb Threat Briefly Evacuates Headquarters Of Grover Norquist Group

Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 25, 2011, 11:21AM

Americans for Tax Reform headquarters

The staff of Americans For Tax Reform were briefly evacuated from their DC headquarters this morning as police responded to a bomb threat against the building. No explosives were found and the staff has returned to work.

The call came in around 9:10 Monday morning, according to a police spokesperson contacted by TPM. The officer could not say how long the staff was evacuated but said police had allowed them to return to work by the time we called at around 11:00 AM.

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Debt Ceiling

Grover Norquist: McConnell-Reid Better Than Default

Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 22, 2011, 6:32PM

Grover Norquist

He doesn't care for it, but Grover Norquist said the plan hatched by Senate leaders Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) is preferable to the nation going into default.

This puts Norquist -- one of the most powerful men on the GOP side of the aisle as the debt ceiling talks continue to percolate -- just slightly to the left of some in the Republican party's tea party activist wing, which have suggested default is a legitimate option.

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Bush Tax Cuts

Wiggle Room For Grover? Norquist Can't Quite Say 'Hell No' To New Revenue

Brian Beutler | July 22, 2011, 9:50AM

Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist has walked the razor's edge in the debate over debt and deficits, warning Republicans not allow any deal that raises tax revenues to pass the House and Senate. But he can't quite bring himself to say that voting for such a package would run afoul of his inviolate pledge.

Here's Norquist in the New York Times today: "My position, and the implications of the pledge regarding such "temporary" tax cuts, is clear," he said referring to the Bush tax cuts which expire automatically if Congress does nothing. "If there were no vote in Congress and taxes rose automatically, then no politicians would have voted for higher taxes and no elected official would have broken his or her pledge."

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Taxes

Boehner And Grover Agree: Letting Bush Tax Cuts Expire 'Would Be Raising Taxes'

Brian Beutler | July 21, 2011, 11:55AM

Well, so much for that.

Grover Norquist has walked back his claim to the Washington Post that allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire would not count as a tax increase, and now the Speaker of the House suggests Grover's views are neither here nor there -- he opposes letting even some of the Bush tax cuts to expire.

"I believe that would be raising taxes," John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters at his weekly Capitol press briefing.

So that's not going to happen. "I've never voted to raise taxes, and I don't intend to," Boehner said.

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Grover Norquist

Did Norquist Blink? Dems Herald Norquist Concession On Bush Tax Cuts

Brian Beutler | July 21, 2011, 10:57AM

Grover Norquist

The big question bedeviling the Capitol Thursday is whether anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist just gave House Republicans the coded signal that they can vote for a bill to reduce deficits and raise the debt limit even if the plan contains new tax revenue.

In an interview with the Washington Post's editorial board, Norquist addressed the question of the Bush tax cuts -- which are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. "Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase," Norquist said. Would that violate his anti-tax pledge? "We wouldn't hold it that way," he said.

Democrats are latching on to this to press Republicans to back off their insistence that any debt limit package be revenue neutral. At a Capitol press conference Thursday, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) read the quotes out loud to reporters. "I think Mr. Norquist has made a very important statement that I hope they each take into consideration," Hoyer said, referring to House Republicans.

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Balanced Budget Amendment

It's A Trap! The Hidden Pitfalls Of GOP's 'Cut, Cap, And Balance' Plan

Brian Beutler | July 18, 2011, 1:24PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Tuesday, the House of Representatives will vote on, and likely pass, a conservative Republican plan called "Cut, Cap, and Balance." The package will include some immediate, as-yet unspecified spending cuts, a statutory cap to keep spending below 18 percent of GDP, and a promised separate vote on a Constitutional amendment that requires Congress to maintain a balanced budget, but essentially forbids any future tax increases.

It would also raise the debt ceiling through 2012 -- an ancillary benefit for Republicans who are looking for any way to pin the consequences of a debt default, should one happen, on Democrats. Indeed, the GOP feigned shock and anger Monday when the White House, as expected, issued an official veto threat -- turns out President Obama's the one threatening to wreak havoc on the country.

Of course, later in the week, the Senate will follow suit, and there Cut, Cap, and Balance is expected to fail.

For Republicans, it's the perfect alignment of popular sounding policies -- "spending cuts" a "balanced budget" and, finally, an end to this debt limit brinksmanship -- minus the a scintilla of accountability or transparency. And for Republicans trying to make nice with conservative activists, it will give them cover to later vote for a much more modest plan to cut some spending, raise the debt limit, avoid default. But the details have been intentionally obscured by most conservatives, and they reveal the plan to be the most radical fiscal policy the GOP has aligned behind in years -- one that makes the Republican's current budget proposal to phase out Medicare appear moderate by comparison.

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Debt Ceiling

McConnell Debt Back-Up Plan Gives Dems Opportunity To Break GOP Anti-Tax Hegemony

Brian Beutler | July 13, 2011, 6:00AM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

The U.S. political world reacted with confusion on Tuesday to a ground-shifting proposal by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Debt Negotiations At The White House]

The plan itself was clear enough: Republicans don't really have the stomach to allow the country to default on its debt in pursuit of their decades-long goals of slashing deeply into popular entitlement programs. But instead of admitting that and extending President Obama's borrowing authority through the 2012 election, McConnell proposed a Rube Goldberg-esque scheme by which Obama, by accepting some public embarrassment for himself and his party, could raise the debt limit on his own, with no policy strings attached.

No spending cuts for Republicans. No tax increases for Democrats. In effect, a clean debt-limit hike with all attendant political consequences, such as there are any, falling on the latter.

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Debt ceiling

Grover Norquist: Rumors Of My Support For The McConnell Debt Plan Are Greatly Exaggerated

Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 12, 2011, 7:40PM

Grover Norquist

Heads were scratched across DC Tuesday when the National Review reported Grover Norquist -- the Republican Party's fiscal conservative in chief -- had signed on to proposed debt ceiling contingency plan suggested by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and excoriated by everyone on the Professional Right.

A couple hours after the National Review posted Norquist's initial take on the plan (and as conservative anger at McConnell bubbled up) Norquist pushed back, claiming that he's not endorsing anything, yet.

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Tax Breaks

Dems See Opening To Push GOP On Taxes After Ethanol Subsidies Vote

Benjy Sarlin | June 15, 2011, 3:01PM

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Tom Coburn (R-OK)

Looking to exploit a rare rift between Republicans and anti-tax groups, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) renewed calls on Tuesday to include revenue increases in any deficit deal.

Some 34 Senate Republicans voted for an amendment ending ethanol subsidies on Tuesday, despite warnings from anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist that dropping tax credits counted as a tax hike. The divide over the issue is complicated and hinges on regional factors in both parties, but Democrats largely voted against the unsuccessful amendment due to stated objections to the procedure by which it was brought up.

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Tom Coburn

Coburn: Revenue Increases Still Must Be Part Of Debt Reduction Agreement (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | May 20, 2011, 9:25AM

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)

If you thought Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) dropped out of the Gang of Six deficit talks because of all the heat he's taken from anti-tax zealots in the conservative movement, think again. The Oklahoma Republican -- and one of the only Republicans with enough credibility among conservatives to sell the idea of higher revenues to rank and file members of his party -- still says higher revenues have to be part of any consensus package to reduce deficits and debt over the long term.

"[R]ealistically we cannot solve our problems unless we generate growth in this country, and the only way we're going to do that is back off on a lot of regulations, create a tax structure that's going to cause investment to happen, and get dynamic returns that actually increase the revenues coming to the federal government," Coubrn said on CNBC Thursday evening. "We can't do it all by eliminating large sections and duplicate spending and waste. We can do a large portion of it, but there has to be some revenue component to that, and anybody that says that's not the case, I think they're just wrong and they're not thinking about the long-term health of our country."

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Budget

Three House GOPers Switched Their Budget Votes After Dem Trick

Susan Crabtree | April 15, 2011, 4:04PM

Cathy Rogers

A Democratic trick on the House floor today forced exactly three Republicans to bow to pressure from their leadership and switch their vote in a last-ditch attempt to save the preordained, less conservative GOP budget plan.

In a stroke of parliamentary genius, Democrats decided to jam a more conservative budget plan through the House in order to hang it around Republicans' necks.

The vote, if successful, would have forced Republicans to formally endorse the more conservative option-- a GOP plan on steroids -- providing deeper cuts for the wealthy and more severe entitlement rollbacks. Democratic campaign ads slamming Republicans for voting for extreme, draconian cuts would have inevitably followed.

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Abortion

'No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act' Tests Republican Priorities

Jillian Rayfield | March 16, 2011, 5:56PM

In the fight over the "The Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act", Republicans in the House may soon have a hard time keeping both fiscal and social conservatives happy.

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Bush Tax Cuts

Influential Conservatives Line Up Behind Tax Cut Compromise

Brian Beutler | December 8, 2010, 11:27AM

Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Here's the counterpoint to the threat Sen. Jim DeMint and the Club for Growth pose to President Obama and Mitch McConnell's tax cut compromise. A number of influential conservatives have already endorsed the plan, including Grover "Drown It In The Bathtub" Norquist.

A GOP source sent over a sampling of those endorsements.

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Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist: This Time, Gov't Shutdown Will Help The GOP (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | November 19, 2010, 10:20AM

Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist wants to party like it's 1995. The Americans for Tax Reform chief and noted Ronald Reagan fan says that Republicans would really do themselves a favor by forcing another government shutdown like they did the last time they took over the House when a Democratic president was in office.

Speaking to Politico, Norquist said that if the Republicans shut down the government over spending concerns this time around, it'll be a lot different than when they did it in 1995. The shutdowns that year are generally seen as a victory for then-President Clinton, who used the images of shuttered Social Security offices and other government agencies to paint the GOP as fanatical.

If the government were to be shut down thanks to a budget dispute between the White House and the Republicans in Congress next year, however, Norquist says the only person who'd suffer politically would be President Obama.

"He will be less popular if in service of overspending and wasting people's money, he closes the government down," he said.

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CPAC

Babbin Jokes About Norquist: I'm Glad He Didn't Fly That Plane Into An IRS Building (VIDEO)

Eric Kleefeld | February 19, 2010, 10:26AM

Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events

At the CPAC conference, Human Events editor Jed Babbin introduced Grover Norquist, the top anti-tax conservative activist in the country. During his introduction, Babbin joked about the recent airplane attack on an IRS building in Texas, which reportedly killed both the alleged perpetrator and a person who was in the building.

"And let me just say, I'm really happy to see Grover today," said Babbin. "He was getting a little testy in the past couple of weeks. And I was just really, really glad that it was not him identified as flying that airplane into the IRS building."

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Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist's Group Totally (Hearts) Ryan's Social Security-Slashing Budget

Christina Bellantoni | February 5, 2010, 3:58PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform

A real split is developing between fiscal conservative groups and Congressional Republicans as Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "roadmap" gets more attention.

GOP leaders in the House have said again and again that even though Ryan is their chief budget writer and he'll be the one to offer their alternative spending plan this spring, what he produced showing massive Social Security and Medicare cuts is not their official plan.

But we keep talking to conservatives who are asking in earnest, Why not?

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VA-05

VA-05 Candidate Once Targeted By Grover Norquist Now Signs His Anti-Tax Pledge

Christina Bellantoni | January 4, 2010, 11:15AM

Republican contenders scrambling to win the nomination to challenge Rep. Tom Perriello in Virginia's fifth Congressional district are sparring over taxes and one candidate is trying to get back in antitax crusader Grover Norquist's good graces.

State Sen. Robert Hurt (R-VA) recently signed Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose any tax increases if elected, and huddled with the group in Washington to say he regretted voting for a $1.4 billion tax increase in 2004 under then-Gov. Mark Warner (D).

Hurt has been criticized as too moderate for the nomination, though he's considered the favorite among a field of lesser known challengers. One conservative blogger hailed the transformation as coming back from the "dark side," then mocked Hurt as thinking his constituents are gullible.

Norquist told CQ Politics that Hurt "basically made the case that this was not a vote he was comfortable with and that it wouldn't happen again."

That's a far cry from Norquist's sentiment in 2004, when he plastered Hurt's face on the poster below as one of the state's "least wanted" for being a tax-increasing Republican.

He vowed then to back a primary challenge against Hurt, then a state delegate, but Hurt was later elected to state senate with little trouble.

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VA-05

Seven-Field Republican Primary In VA-05 Could Yield Another NY-23-Style GOP War

Christina Bellantoni | December 14, 2009, 2:55PM

Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA)

The cry of "RINO" in Virginia's fifth Congressional district is starting to sound a bit familiar as Republicans have opted for a primary election to choose their nominee to challenge freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA).

Tea party activists in the district don't think the favored candidate Robert Hurt, a state senator from rural Chatham, is conservative enough.

The June primary is an interesting development in the VA-05 district, which is the top target for Congressional Republicans who held it until last year.

There are seven candidates and Democrats see a potential for a NY-23 repeat, with an independent candidate gaining steam if Hurt picks up the nomination.

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