Tax Fairy Pledge Causes ‘Super Committee’ Failure

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

60 Minutes did a segment on the Tax Fairy, Grover Norquist, on Sunday on the eve of the so-called "super committee" aka "super Congress" failure to come to any agreement, see Lawmakers Concede Budget Talks Are Close to Failure – NYTimes.com and Debt supercommittee members brace for failure – The Washington Post, because the Tea-Publicans honor their un-American pledge to this corrupt K Street lobbyist more than their oath of office.

This point was never made by media villager Steve Kroft in his report. The Pledge: Grover Norquist's hold on the GOP – CBS News:

The Joint Congressional Committee on Deficit Reduction has just three days to reach a deal eliminating at least $1.2 trillion from the nation's debt using some combination of cutting spending and raising taxes. 

The person at the heart of those negotiations – and some would say the person responsible for the deadlock – is neither a member of Congress nor the holder of any public office. He is a lobbyist and a conservative activist named Grover Norquist who, over the years, has gotten virtually every Republican congressman and senator to sign an oath called "The Pledge." It's a promise that they will never, under any circumstances, vote to raise taxes on anyone. And so far Grover Norquist has held them to it, controlling 279 votes, including the speaker of the House, the Senate minority leader and all six Republican members of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction.

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Since creating Americans for Tax Reform at Ronald Reagan's behest back in 1985, Norquist has been responsible, more than anyone else, for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party.

Norquist: The Republicans won't raise your taxes. We haven't had a Republican vote for an income tax increase since 1990.

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Norquist: I think to win a Republican primary– It is difficult to imagine somebody winning a primary without taking the pledge.

The signatories not only include more than 270 members of Congress, but all of the Republican presidential candidates, with the lone exception of John Huntsman.

Video link http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7389006n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

Back on November 10, Lawrence O'Donnell in this "Rewrite" segment from The Last Word explained how the Tax Fairy Pledge is un-American and violates the oath of office taken by members of Congress — "the founding fathers intended for members of Congress to take only an oath of office, not an oath to a lobbyist."

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Transcript below the fold.

O`DONNELL: In tonight`s "Rewrite," the rewriting of Grover Norquist`s anti-American pledge continues to gain momentum in Washington among the signers of the Norquist pledge. The Norquist pledge to never raise taxes in any way including by closing loopholes is anti-American in the extreme because the founding fathers intended for members of Congress to take only an oath of office, not an oath to a lobbyist.

The Norquist pledge is anti-American because the elected officials who take it are forced to take it before they are elected, and it is intended by Norquist to supersede their oath of office.

The Norquist pledge is grotesquely un-American because a member of Congress swears himself to in effect be incapable of truly taking the oath of office because by taking the Norquist pledge that member of Congress is saying I promise to never under any circumstances support and defend the constitutional power to tax.

The words of the oath of office are "I will support and defend the constitution of the United States." The Norquist pledge is in direct conflict with those words. It is impossible to honor the oath of office and honor the Norquist pledge.

I reported to you here last week that 37 House Republicans chose their oath of office over their oath to Grover and signed a letter to the super committee saying that the tax revenues should be considered in any deficit reduction package. Now "The Hill" reports that some of those Republicans are busy rewriting their understanding of their pledge to Grover.

Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho asked, if it sticks with you forever, why do they ask you to resign it every two years? Ohio Republican Congressman Steven LaTourette said his pledge was no longer valid because "I haven`t signed it since 1994. My driver`s license expires. The milk in my refrigerator expires. My gym membership expires." OK, driver`s licenses take like years to expire and gym memberships take at least months to expire. But milk expiring, that just takes days.

How did Grover respond to that? His veneer of confidence gave way to thinly veiled rage. "A promise not to do something doesn`t have a time limit. I haven`t even had junior state legislators pull that crap."

New Jersey Congressman Robert Andrews, one of the few Democrats in Congress who signed Grover`s pledge, said "I never considered it to be like my marriage vows. I did not promise him to oppose tax increases until death do us part."

Hey, Grover, if your hero Ronald Reagan could break his marriage vows to the first wife, don`t look so surprised when some congressmen break their vows to you.