Gayle in MD
07-21-2011, 12:33 PM
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">WASHINGTON -- Ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy would not be a tax hike, according to Grover Norquist, the man behind a pledge against increasing taxes. That assessment gives the Republican Party breathing room to let some tax breaks expire without violating a pledge to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.
"Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase," Norquist told the Washington Post editorial board. "We wouldn't hold it" as violating the pledge, he said.
The Republican Party has long been beholden to Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Norquist. The "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," which nearly all Republican members of Congress have signed, says signatories will never vote to raise taxes. According to Norquist, the pledge has also ruled out voting to end certain tax breaks and subsidies without using the resulting money to lower rates elsewhere.
But ending the Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended last December by President Barack Obama, could now offer a way to raise revenue for a debt limit deal -- without Republicans breaking their pledge against voting to raise taxes.
Norquist said he still opposes ending the Bush tax cuts, but his shift on whether they would be interpreted as a violation of the pledge gives more leeway in negotiations for raising the debt limit.
A deal on raising the debt ceiling has been delayed by Republicans' hard-line drive for spending cuts, with many vowing they will not allow for tax increases as part of a final deal.
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Story continues below:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yet some Republicans have shown a recent willingness to amend tax policy despite their pledge, with 34 Senate Republicans voting in June to end ethanol subsidies in an amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). At the time, Norquist rebuked Coburn for that amendment, saying the senator "lied his way into office" and was breaking the pledge.
Coburn, though, was adamant that ending the ethanol subsidy -- a vote that ultimately failed -- would be good policy, saying Norquist has less influence than people think.
"The fact is it's not a good position to put yourself in when you say, 'Here's a tax expenditure that nobody needs, and yet we have to give somebody else a tax cut to take away this,'" he told reporters at the time.
Norquist said he still opposes ending the Bush tax cuts, but his shift on whether they would be interpreted as a violation of the pledge gives more leeway in negotiations for raising the debt limit.
A deal on raising the debt ceiling has been delayed by Republicans' hard-line drive for spending cuts, with many vowing they will not allow for tax increases as part of a final deal.
Story continues below
UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. -- Appearing on MSNBC hours after the editorial appeared, Norquist claimed that the Washington Post had selectively quoted him.
"I think they need to follow the rest of the conversation," he said. "Otherwise it wouldn't pass the laugh test to go to the American people and tell them you just allowed $4 trillion dollars in higher taxes by allowing the 2001-2003 lower rates to lapse and tell people that's not a tax increase."
"It clearly would be a dramatic increase in taxes," he added. "How you get into [Congressional Budget Offce] scoring and technicalities is a different issue, in terms of taxes lapsing."
Democrats, Norquist said, were wrong to assume that he had opened to door to a debt ceiling compromise that would include revenues derived from letting the tax cuts expire.
UPDATE: 2:10 p.m. -- The Washington Post has responded to Norquist's and ATR's walk-backs on his comments by posting the audio of his remarks to their website.
"So that there's no question about what was said during Tuesday's meeting, here's the relevant audio of the interchange between Norquist and editorial board member Ruth Marcus," the post reads.
LISTEN:
</div></div>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/grover-norquist-bush-tax-cuts-tax-hike_n_905624.html
<span style="color: #990000">Guess the chubby little munchkin doesn't want to be responsible for another econoomic crash, caused by Repiglican unrealistic and damaging policies, BUT he also doesn't want to own up to what he clearly stated, as the released tape, from WAPO proves....make up your mind Chubby.... lol.
OK little Repiggy Tea Party sheepies, you can vote now, ah oh, no, you can't vote after all....Sick! The Chubby GODMAN Munchkin, has not given you permission to do your jobs, or has he???????????????????
Uh Oh, gee, now what? Asked the sheep! </span>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You will notice, in its artfully worded response to a Washington Post editorial quoting Grover Norquist as saying that letting the Bush tax cuts lapse would not violate the no new taxes pledge, that Norquist's group did not deny that's precisely what he said.
Repeatedly.
It's always fun to listen to Norquist, the godfather of the no-new-taxes pledge that has been signed by nearly every Republican in Congress, not to mention a few Democrats. His mind is peripatetic. A conversation with him can be studded with allusions to everything from the movie Airplane to Ann of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry the Eighth.
Norquist was in full form when he stopped by to visit with The Washington Post Editorial Board the other day, but what really got me to perk up was his answer to my colleague Charles Lane's deceptively simple questions about what constitutes a tax increase. Norquist's answer — allowing a temporary tax cut to expire does not equal a tax increase for purposes of the pledge — had me leaping out of my chair. You can listen here.
Me: Wait wait wait wait wait! Can you back up for a second? Are you saying that it would not violate your pledge to allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse?
Norquist: The guys in the House and senate view that it would.
Me: I’m asking you…
Norquist: Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.
Me. So it does not violate the pledge.
Norquist: We wouldn’t hold it that way.…That’s not going to get these guys off the hook because the House and Senate guy’ view is that it is a tax increase.
Me: But isn’t that just because they’re convinced that you would…pillory them?”
Break for an interlude about how to think about temporary tax increases on the state level and temporary tax breaks that are regularly extended.
Me: So you’re saying that if candidate Romney were to come out tomorrow and say…here’s the deal…in order to get our country on a sustainable fiscal path we are going to have to let all the Bush tax cuts lapse and people like me call you up and toss you what we think is going to be a softball and say, “Grover, would you like to denounce him for violating the pledge?”
Norquist: I would denounce him as a tax increaser and a bad guy. It would not technically violate the pledge.
Here’s the important thing about Norquist’s admission, and why it has his group in such a tizzy now. It’s not that Norquist was sending some kind of premeditated dog whistle to GOP lawmakers that it is now safe to reverse course. It’s just that, under the enhanced interrogation of the Washington Post Editorial Board, he was honest enough to acknowledge that in the current econtext of the Bush tax cuts being set to expire, the pledge is in effect toothless.
To the extent that he has terrorized scores of Repubilcan lawmakers against being willing to allow the Bush tax cuts, any part of them, to lapse, Norquist’s comments offer them a huge amount of wiggle room. Some $4 trillion worth of wiggle room, given the baseline on which Norquist says the pledge is based.
Norquist can revise and extend all he wants, but he said what he said.
</div></div>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post...FkCSI_blog.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/grover-norquists-toothless-pledge/2011/02/28/gIQAZFkCSI_blog.html)
"Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase," Norquist told the Washington Post editorial board. "We wouldn't hold it" as violating the pledge, he said.
The Republican Party has long been beholden to Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Norquist. The "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," which nearly all Republican members of Congress have signed, says signatories will never vote to raise taxes. According to Norquist, the pledge has also ruled out voting to end certain tax breaks and subsidies without using the resulting money to lower rates elsewhere.
But ending the Bush-era tax cuts, which were extended last December by President Barack Obama, could now offer a way to raise revenue for a debt limit deal -- without Republicans breaking their pledge against voting to raise taxes.
Norquist said he still opposes ending the Bush tax cuts, but his shift on whether they would be interpreted as a violation of the pledge gives more leeway in negotiations for raising the debt limit.
A deal on raising the debt ceiling has been delayed by Republicans' hard-line drive for spending cuts, with many vowing they will not allow for tax increases as part of a final deal.
</div></div>
Story continues below:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Yet some Republicans have shown a recent willingness to amend tax policy despite their pledge, with 34 Senate Republicans voting in June to end ethanol subsidies in an amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). At the time, Norquist rebuked Coburn for that amendment, saying the senator "lied his way into office" and was breaking the pledge.
Coburn, though, was adamant that ending the ethanol subsidy -- a vote that ultimately failed -- would be good policy, saying Norquist has less influence than people think.
"The fact is it's not a good position to put yourself in when you say, 'Here's a tax expenditure that nobody needs, and yet we have to give somebody else a tax cut to take away this,'" he told reporters at the time.
Norquist said he still opposes ending the Bush tax cuts, but his shift on whether they would be interpreted as a violation of the pledge gives more leeway in negotiations for raising the debt limit.
A deal on raising the debt ceiling has been delayed by Republicans' hard-line drive for spending cuts, with many vowing they will not allow for tax increases as part of a final deal.
Story continues below
UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. -- Appearing on MSNBC hours after the editorial appeared, Norquist claimed that the Washington Post had selectively quoted him.
"I think they need to follow the rest of the conversation," he said. "Otherwise it wouldn't pass the laugh test to go to the American people and tell them you just allowed $4 trillion dollars in higher taxes by allowing the 2001-2003 lower rates to lapse and tell people that's not a tax increase."
"It clearly would be a dramatic increase in taxes," he added. "How you get into [Congressional Budget Offce] scoring and technicalities is a different issue, in terms of taxes lapsing."
Democrats, Norquist said, were wrong to assume that he had opened to door to a debt ceiling compromise that would include revenues derived from letting the tax cuts expire.
UPDATE: 2:10 p.m. -- The Washington Post has responded to Norquist's and ATR's walk-backs on his comments by posting the audio of his remarks to their website.
"So that there's no question about what was said during Tuesday's meeting, here's the relevant audio of the interchange between Norquist and editorial board member Ruth Marcus," the post reads.
LISTEN:
</div></div>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/grover-norquist-bush-tax-cuts-tax-hike_n_905624.html
<span style="color: #990000">Guess the chubby little munchkin doesn't want to be responsible for another econoomic crash, caused by Repiglican unrealistic and damaging policies, BUT he also doesn't want to own up to what he clearly stated, as the released tape, from WAPO proves....make up your mind Chubby.... lol.
OK little Repiggy Tea Party sheepies, you can vote now, ah oh, no, you can't vote after all....Sick! The Chubby GODMAN Munchkin, has not given you permission to do your jobs, or has he???????????????????
Uh Oh, gee, now what? Asked the sheep! </span>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You will notice, in its artfully worded response to a Washington Post editorial quoting Grover Norquist as saying that letting the Bush tax cuts lapse would not violate the no new taxes pledge, that Norquist's group did not deny that's precisely what he said.
Repeatedly.
It's always fun to listen to Norquist, the godfather of the no-new-taxes pledge that has been signed by nearly every Republican in Congress, not to mention a few Democrats. His mind is peripatetic. A conversation with him can be studded with allusions to everything from the movie Airplane to Ann of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry the Eighth.
Norquist was in full form when he stopped by to visit with The Washington Post Editorial Board the other day, but what really got me to perk up was his answer to my colleague Charles Lane's deceptively simple questions about what constitutes a tax increase. Norquist's answer — allowing a temporary tax cut to expire does not equal a tax increase for purposes of the pledge — had me leaping out of my chair. You can listen here.
Me: Wait wait wait wait wait! Can you back up for a second? Are you saying that it would not violate your pledge to allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse?
Norquist: The guys in the House and senate view that it would.
Me: I’m asking you…
Norquist: Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.
Me. So it does not violate the pledge.
Norquist: We wouldn’t hold it that way.…That’s not going to get these guys off the hook because the House and Senate guy’ view is that it is a tax increase.
Me: But isn’t that just because they’re convinced that you would…pillory them?”
Break for an interlude about how to think about temporary tax increases on the state level and temporary tax breaks that are regularly extended.
Me: So you’re saying that if candidate Romney were to come out tomorrow and say…here’s the deal…in order to get our country on a sustainable fiscal path we are going to have to let all the Bush tax cuts lapse and people like me call you up and toss you what we think is going to be a softball and say, “Grover, would you like to denounce him for violating the pledge?”
Norquist: I would denounce him as a tax increaser and a bad guy. It would not technically violate the pledge.
Here’s the important thing about Norquist’s admission, and why it has his group in such a tizzy now. It’s not that Norquist was sending some kind of premeditated dog whistle to GOP lawmakers that it is now safe to reverse course. It’s just that, under the enhanced interrogation of the Washington Post Editorial Board, he was honest enough to acknowledge that in the current econtext of the Bush tax cuts being set to expire, the pledge is in effect toothless.
To the extent that he has terrorized scores of Repubilcan lawmakers against being willing to allow the Bush tax cuts, any part of them, to lapse, Norquist’s comments offer them a huge amount of wiggle room. Some $4 trillion worth of wiggle room, given the baseline on which Norquist says the pledge is based.
Norquist can revise and extend all he wants, but he said what he said.
</div></div>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post...FkCSI_blog.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/grover-norquists-toothless-pledge/2011/02/28/gIQAZFkCSI_blog.html)