Is Grover Norquist an undercover foreign agent?

summerintx

(18 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Nov-01-11 04:12 PM
Original message

Is Grover Norquist an undercover foreign agent?

I have a theory. Grover Norquist is a member of a sleeper cell who has very successfully infiltrated Republican ranks and intentionally sold them a bill of goods to undermine our government, our economic prosperity, and our security. Unfortunately, he seems to be succeeding.

What else can explain the absolute blinders with which he is leading us down a path of destruction?

Check out Mother Jones' story: The Job Killers

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/republicans-job-creation-kill

"Why are Republicans determined to snuff the recovery?"

Norquist, a professional conservative and Washington salonista, drew up the pledge <"Taxpayer Protection Pledge"> in 1986 at the behest of Ronald Reagan (who had signed a major federal tax increase a few years earlier, but never mind). It was part of the Republicans' nascent "starve the beast" campaign, which postulated that since cutting public services would always be unpopular, the way to shrink the government was to give it little more than hardtack. The movement erupted into full bloom in 2001, when Congress passed the Bush tax cut package; at the time, Norquist crowed: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Leaving aside the metaphor's casual brutality (what can you really drown in the tub? A puppy? A child?), shrinking government wasn't on the agenda. Not really.

The cover art above captures the horror.

But there was a time bomb built into the 2001 tax cuts. The package was estimated to put the nation $700 billion in the red, putting it at odds with congressional "pay as you go" legislation under which lawmakers had to offset bills that stood to increase the deficit for more than 10 years. But—voilà!—Congress set the tax cuts to expire in exactly 10 years, de facto taking their cost off the books. It was the equivalent of telling your spouse that the two of you will balance your checkbook every month, except for the Maserati that you're floating on the Visa.

Back to the bathtub: Republicans set the nation's budget on track to flip from surplus to deficit by passing a giant tax cut and hiding the fiscal implications. Then, in 2011—after forcing an extension of that same tax cut—Republicans were shocked, shocked to discover the ballooning deficit and demanded immediate, drastic spending reductions.

And it wasn't just at the federal government level that they enacted ticking time bombs.

Now, you may generally endorse government spending, or you may not. But it is the only kind of spending that can be pumped into the economy when business investment dries up. And it's also what keeps paychecks coming to the 20 million Americans who work for federal, state, and local governments, the 1.4 million active-duty military personnel, the 55 million on Social Security, and last but certainly not least the 300,000-plus businesses that depend in whole or in part on government contracts.

Systematic undermining.

The beauty of this strategy is that it creates the atmosphere for its own success—call it political terraforming. Say you're trying to get a building permit at your local zoning office and the budget has been cut 20, 40, even 50 percent. The lone remaining clerk won't process your paperwork on time, your contractor won't get paid, and you might just give up on your project; you need a drink, but you can't get one because the restaurant down the block is still waiting for its liquor permit. Now you're mad at the government and the economy suffers, making you madder.

Public transit cutting routes and upping fares? Parks shuttering Little League fields? Bridges going unmaintained until they fall into rivers? Firefighters letting homes burn because the owner hasn't paid a $75 fee? Cops watching a man drown because they can no longer afford water-rescue training? (Those last two? Really happened.) Do this long enough, and pretty soon the snake starts eating its own tail: We underfund public services, therefore public services don't work, therefore we underfund them.

Is your blood beginning to boil yet?

A cut equivalent to 1 percent of GDP, or about $150 billion, would, according to a recent study by the International Monetary Fund, result in 750,000 more people on the streets. And the private sector, as we've seen in the past 18 months, is not about to make up for that even though it's sitting on billions in profits.

Read more at Mother Jones and look at their charts and other supporting material. Whether or not Norquist is an enemy agent, he and his ideas are destructive of our education, health, economic prosperity, and well-being. He and his lemming-like followers are determined to rush the U.S. off of a cliff. Yet they project onto liberals the very thing they are doing: undermining the strength and dominance of our country.