GOP Rep Turns On Norquist: Were Screwed Either Way By Joseph Morton | World-Herald Bureau |11/29/2012 Excerpts: WASHINGTON - The no-higher-taxes-ever pledge long promoted by activist Grover Norquist has proven popular among Nebraska and Iowa Republicans. But unlike Norquist, most of them told The World-Herald this week that they could support a broad budget agreement that addresses entitlement spending and avoids the so-called fiscal cliff, even if the deal ends up including higher tax revenues. They aren't the only ones parting ways with Norquist, who heads the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform. Several senior Republicans on Capitol Hill have made clear they do not feel beholden. Norquist opposes tax increases of any kind, including eliminating deductions. He has insisted on unyielding positions from lawmakers and, for years, has held outsized sway in the Republican Party for someone outside of public office. His pledge doesn't allow any change to the tax code that adds even a dollar to revenues. House Speaker John Boehner in 2011 called that notion unrealistic and dismissed Norquist as some random person, not a major force in the GOP. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says the only pledge he will keep is his oath of office. It's quite an about-face for senior members of a party that long stood firmly against almost any notion of tax increases. The reality of a nation in a debt crisis is forcing some to moderate their opposition to any increase in how much Americans pay to support their government. GOP legislators and Democratic President Barack Obama's White House are haggling over ways to reach agreement on detailed tax adjustments and spending cuts before automatic, blunt-force tax increases and spending cuts arrive with the new year. The pledge is not as applicable to this situation, because doing nothing is what makes taxes go up, said Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee who, like others interviewed for this article, opposes increasing tax rates. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, understands that everything is on the table, said his chief of staff, James Carstensen. He will judge any proposal on its merits, Carstensen said. He's not worried about a pledge to Grover Norquist, Carstensen said. Republicans nationally have been downplaying the pledge's significance. Oh, I signed it, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said on Fox News, adding he still supports its goals. But we've got to deal with the crisis we face. We've got to deal with the political reality of the president's victory. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., has made plain that he no longer feels bound by the pledge, describing it as too absolute and constraining to creative policy-making. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is one of only 13 Republicans in the House or Senate who have not signed the pledge. Grassley has said he doesn't sign any such pledges on principle, although he opposes tax increases. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., signed Norquist's pledge but says now that he's open to a deal that includes some new tax revenues. Nobody's turning on me, Norquist said. But he has indicated that he would turn on lawmakers who defy him, starting with Corker, whose opinion piece Monday in the Washington Post outlined an alternative to the budget breakdown that includes more revenue. A recent CNN poll showed that Americans are more inclined to blame Republicans in Congress than Obama if no deal is reached. We're screwed either way, Terry said. We really have no leverage in these discussions. http://www.omaha.com/article/20121129/NEWS/711299912/1694 ...... Aside from the fact that the republicans were screwed the minute they nominated the corporate-raider ex-governor of Mass. Mitt Romney, who saw fit to scrub everything clean from every computer and sell the computers themselves (he even bought the hard drives of each computer when he left office as governor which a law abiding governor would never do), they went gullibly into the false premise that Romney could easily buy the presidency no matter that he was insufficient morally or mentally for the position of president. After following Norquist like republican sheeple, Congress has now decided that Norquist should be thrown under the bus because republicans took a drubbing in the election. But that does not excuse the fact that they were content to follow a radical like Norquist, and sign his pledges which over-rode their pledges to work for the people of our country...and work for the power and gratification of Grover Norquist over our country. To me this is treason, dereliction of duty, and a slap in the face to the people that voted for them. Not one of them deserves to be a member of the Congress of the United States anymore.
As Elrond might say....Norquist's list of allies grows thin. In the end, I'm betting they live more in fear of those polls....than Norquist "gunning for them" in 2014 with a primary challenger.
No, you're not. Get with your boy Louie Gohmert: Tie the debt ceiling to the negotiations. Problem solved...
Yes, again, I'm sure smart, ambitious Republicans will ignore the polling....and go with what Louie said to Hannity.
Yep, GOP. That's what happens when you run crazy people for election -- you lose the election and you lose your leverage. Next time, try some credible candidates. Oh, and try being credible in the current negotiations. You're still sounding crazy.
Actually, smart, ambitious Republicans are looking AT the polling when they force Obama to get serious about negotiating a deal to avoid the cliff. What they'll have to ignore is the squealing of Democrats, which shouldn't be a problem...
Pretty nuts to say "We want a trillion in non-defense spending, Medicare and Social Security altered drastically, Defense left untouched, and not a DIME raised on Thurston Howell-III....that's what the American people want....even though they just completely voted AGAINST that 3 weeks ago!"
Actually, the polling shows that a majority of Americans will blame Republicans if we don't get a deal (I saw it on Breitbart. ) Oh, and do you remember the LAST time the GOP tried to use the Debt Ceiling as "leverage" against the President...and how that worked out for them?
RE the GOP's debt limit threats: "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result." They just don't seem very bright.
The more I find out about this guy, the happier I am that the voters kicked him to the curb. One worry I had was that his election would let all of the right-wingers into power, but Romney himself looks like a much more sinister character in retrospect.
..... 1) while you are at it, why don't you tie making abortions illegal into the fiscal cliff? The republican Congressmen are afraid of their jobs now, their party is in shambles, and they are about to be judged harshly by any continuation of obstruction. They are in the first stage of kiss-up to keep their jobs. Anybody that has to go to Faux News to air their political ideas is already a loser. The republicans live in yesterday's world; Dems live in today's and tomorrow's world and are prepared. 2) Now you are being silly, ask any American what they think of the republicans in Congress and you will get a earful. The Dems are now in control because they have the American people behind them, who have discovered the treachery, chicanery, and filthy unstatesmanlike actions of the republicans. Your picture for the next decade or two doesn't look good for the republicans...better start working FOR the American people not AGAINST them.
Arguing with a Norquist acolyte is like arguing with your children about dinner. If the children signed a pledge to never eat their vegetables.
.... 1) You are right, and it still is a mystery to me how any loyal republican would allow his nomination with just the few things we knew about him during the primaries...he obviously was an arrogant, triple-personalitied corporate-raider who lost his sense of right and wrong early in life. All we needed was a seedy, out-of-touch, tax-evading person like him in the White House. 2) Yes, he was scary with those flashing eyes, bravely plunging into his "foreign policy" maneuvers while in Europe and the middle east. he was an acute embarrassment to every American even then, plus his different personalities were weird to watch...but the scariest was when he promised Netanyahu that America would back anything he decided to do concerning Palestine and Iran...this coming from a man that was only a candidate for president, usurping the power of Congress and that of the presidency in uttering such a statement. I blame the republicans for allowing a person such as Mitt Romney to ever be a part of the public scene, bringing disgrace, cynicism, as well as shock and awe to the American people. blech...
And the constituents of the Republicans in the House didn't send them to DC to raise taxes and add $4-5 trillion more dollars to the debt. Why should the GOP care what Obama's supporters want? Either way, the debt ceiling will give our unserious president and fellow Democrats some impetus to get serious and strike a deal. That will nip the blame game in the bud. The president didn't come out smelling like a rose, either.
So you've really convinced yourself that most voters who elected Republicans....did so with the express desire of "No tax hikes on the rich"?
It is beyond imagination how any American, Republican or whatever, could have listened for one minute to someone of the likes of Grover Norquist. Besides giving horrible advise on taxes to his Republican cohorts (totally against the wishes of the American people), this traitor (along with the fool Karl "Mr. Landslide" Rove) has been deeply involved with Muslim Brotherhood radicals going back to the 2000 presidential election when he claimed credit for the victory over Al Gore, from his Islamic Free Market Institute, a group Norquist founded and listed as a Muslim Brotherhood front group by the US Justice Dept., and campaign work with Muslims to get them to vote for Bush. In so doing, Norquist was deeply involved with some of the worst Muslim subversives this country has ever known. (Sami al-Arian, Abdurahman Alamoudi, Jamal Barzinji to name just a few. After the election, Norquist placed one of his Islamic Institute staffers Suhail Khan, inside the White House as an official gatekeeper for Muslims. Khan is well known as a Muslim Brotherhood operative who has been a consultant for the MB group CAIR, as well as served on committees at ISNA (the "nucleus" group of the Muslim Brotherhood in America). With Khan infiltrated inside the White House (thanks to Norquist), Khan and Norquist put together a blanket list of 83 Muslim activists whom they wanted Rove to invite to White House outreach events. The list, submitted to the Secret Service for security clearance, reads like a who's who of hard-line Islamists and Wahhabists, some known terrorist sympathizers and supporters under federal investigation, such as Jamal Barzinji of the infamous Safa group. Norquist's name tops the list. Also on it are Sami al-Arian, former leader of the terrorist Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a convicted terrorist, who last I heard, was under house arrest in Virgina, awaiting trial on contempt charges. Also on the list is Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was known to be the most frequent Muslim Brotherhood visitor to White House functions (thanks to Norquist). Alamoudi is now serving a 23 year federal prison sentence, on terrorist-related charges. For an in depth expose' (and a really good one) of Norquist's radical Muslim involvements, see Infiltration by Paul Sperry with 28 pages on Norquist's Islamist misdeeds. PS - to put a cherry on the top of this cake, Norquist married a Palestinian Muslim woman (Samah Alrayyes), who was formerly a director of the Islamic Free Market Institute, the Muslim outreach group founded by Khaled Saffuri and Norquist in 1998. She works as specialist at the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs at United States Agency for International Development (USAID). More Muslim Brotherhood infiltration and yet another example of how enemise of America are deep inside our own government, working to destroy America (the documented goal of the US Muslim Brotherhood). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Free_Market_Institute
If the GOP were smart -- which it manifestly is not -- it would notice that even though it retains the majority in the House (for now), more Americans voted for Democratic House candidates than for Republican House candidates. Even with the gerrymandering, the GOP majority shrank. The Democratic majority in the Senate grew. And of course, the Democratic President was re-elected. Voters, even Republican voters, consistently support the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy. The right wing has lost this argument.
