Tax Hawks Cooling to Norquist

[kainah]

Tax hawks cooling to Norquist
By Alexander Bolton

Influential conservatives from an array of anti-tax groups are publicly criticizing Grover Norquist, considered President Bush’s most prominent liaison to the conservative grassroots, for being too close to the White House.

While acknowledging Nor-quist’s contribution to the fight to cut the size of government as head of Americans for Tax Reform, they question whether he can continue as an effective leader of the conservative movement.

The critics cite his decision not to oppose the $395 billion Medicare bill Bush signed into law last year, the cost of which has since swelled to an estimated $521 billion.

snip...

“I think my old friend Grover made a big mistake,” said Richard Rahn, an adjunct scholar at Cato and a conservative commentator. “I’ve been meaning to call Grover and talk to him about it. You don’t want to beat someone up for one or two things, but I’m concerned about Grover.”

much more at:

http://www.thehill.com/news/032404/norquist.aspx

This is great news. If Norquist goes down, that's a major loss for the infrastructure of the repug movement.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Except that...

the next one might be worse.

Cut a head off the Hydra and two more pop out. Norquist's succesors just might be less flamboyant and even more successful at getting what they want by stealth.

[kainah]

2. I don't know

Norquist really is a pretty exceptional one. Kind of like Gingrich. You won't kill him, but few will turn up with the organizational skills to replace him quickly. Thankfully, there just aren't that many of his type around.

[yellowcanine]

3. Grover is going to be a little peeved about this.

He doesn't take criticism well.

[Chicago Democrat]

4. Grover Norquist is a Quisling, Traitor, Repugnant Swine

and those are his good points!

He is a worm. He is a slug. He is a bag of scum.

[mbperrin]

5. get that little sob!

now

[mobuto]

6. Without Norquist

how will prominent supporters of Islamist militant groups network with the Bush Administration? It isn't fair!

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Who will help funnel money to them

to support all these terrorist attacks all over the world, that almost always come at a time and place to help Bu$hCo?

[President Jesus]

7. Norquist campaign cash - detail

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=DC&contributor=Grover+Norquist

bonus: Richard Rahn
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=Great+Falls&st=VA&contributor=Rahn

[UpInArms]

8. the passage of this

abomination was what Norquist wanted - it will bankrupt the social security nets and the government all that much quicker.

That is truly his goal.

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=9326

About Grover Norquist:

Grover Norquist is also on the boards of the National Rifle Association of America and the American Conservative Union.

Norquist forged an early alliance with President Bush, traveling to Austin, Texas to meet with then-Governor Bush and his political advisor Karl Rove right after Bush's 1998 reelection. Norquist threw the full force of his influence behind the Bush campaign, playing a key role in defeating Sen. John McCain in the South Carolina primaries.

Norquist was a campaign staffer on the 1988, 1992, 1996 Republican
Platform Committees and executive director of both the National Taxpayers' Union and the College Republicans.

Norquist writes the monthly politics column for the American Enterprise Institute magazine and used to write a monthly column for the American Spectator.

<snip>

“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

“I want to reduce the size of government in half as a percentage of GNP over the next 25 years. We want to reduce the number of people depending on government so there is more autonomy and more free citizens.”

[RainDog]

9. Norquist consorts with funders of terrorism

so why isn't he in Gitmo in a cage?

Oh, I forgot, like Bush, it's okay if he maintains close personal ties with funders of terrorism...it's only the riffraff in the trenches that the administration cares about.

funny how Congress wasn't willing to go after terrorism funding via all those offshore Cayman Island set ups.

Maybe they would have found Grover's account, too.

[dusty64]

11. Exactly, it is outrageous

the shit they are allowed to get away with. Also I read today the drug manufactuer welfare bill is going to bust Medicare, isn't this EXACTLY the plan of norquist and his WH puppets? I certainly hope the Democrats start going after this complete with soundbites of rethugs promising to bankrupt these programs, the corporate media sure as hell won't connect these dots.

[tom_paine]

13. Bingo! And what Repug Operative made the 9-11 "put" options

Undoubtedly a paper trail pointing DIRECTLY at Imperial Allies or Stooges.

Which is why it disappeared. Soviet-style, never to be seen again.

[amber dog democrat]

10. He's too evil to be marginalized

Where ever he is sent, he'll wreak havoc as long as he has the access to policy makers.
However if some Conservatives are unhappy with him - it may present an entertaining prospect thayt could turn into something more acriminious.

[snippy]

14. Lots of Reich wingers have started to resent Grover's increased influence

with the Bush administration. They used to praise his Wednesday morning group but Grover is such a particularly odious, little fuck that no one can like him for long.

[AlinPA]

15. I sensed that Norquist abd Rove were running things

at the White House. Norquist on tax policy and business issues; Rove on everything else (including Iraq)

[johnfunk]

16. From 1997 but still relevant: "Why Grover Is Going to Jail"

From now on, abandoned by members of your "Americans for Tax Reform," you'll no longer be welcome at little "conservative" get-togethers. Your own weekly liberal roasts will draw a smaller and smaller audience, and your legal bills will cripple your ability to buy $20 cigars.

But you have one thing to look forward to: like Ebeneezer Scrooge, once you're indicted, you'll go to sleep a conservative Republican and wake up as a liberal Democrat.

At least you'll have that, and I can't say I'm sorry.

More here.

[Zolok]

17. Ditto on that, Grover desperately wanted the Medicare bill to pass...

A mixture of systemic tax cuts and massive budget expenditures will set off a crisis in public funding that'll cause the federal government to shrink to a size more pleasing to this utopian fanatic.
More than likely though, the government won't shrink so much as implode, budgets will be cut, services discontinued, bonds issued and bought by foreign banks...the U.S.A. you know and love will disappear, what will be left will have a pleasing "small government" racked with perpetual debt to overseas banks.
Grover is a bolsheviki, he doesn't care how appalling conditions become for the average citizen, as long as the end result is "small government".
Our super power status could fade, but Grover couldn't care less as long as we have "small government".
He is in a sense a modern Stalinist, if the man won't fit the ideal, then that is too bad for the man.
"The Boston Phoenix" ran an article about him last week (he grew up in my home state of Massachusetts)...his raw power worship recalls Uncle Joe at his palmiest.
Or a nerdy needy 12 year old...the article notes that young Grover read some of J. Edgar Hoover's anti communist instant books at an impressionable age...ever afterward his reactionary fixation recalls a junior high student being dragged to the principal's office after calling his homeroom teacher a "communist".
How to deal with him?
That I do not know, how to you deal with someone who thinks there are Vladimir Lenin?


www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com