Without a bipartisan agreement this summer to reduce the federal deficit and raise the debt limit, the economy could suffer a horrendous blow, leaders of both parties say. If that happens, some will point fingers at a bearded, slightly disheveled man who’s barely known outside political circles in Washington.
For two decades, Grover Norquist has been the driving force in pushing the Republican Party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time. He has been so successful that some GOP officials fear they’ve let Mr. Norquist squeeze them into a corner where they’ll be unable to declare victory even if they win the great majority of their budget demands in negotiations with congressional Democrats and President Obama.
Democrats, meanwhile, use Mr. Norquist to paint the GOP as an unreasonable party that kowtows to billionaires at the expense of middle-class Americans.
Mr. Obama is insisting that even if a deficit-reduction accord relies overwhelmingly on spending cuts, it also must have some revenue increases. Democrats say they should start with eliminating some not-so-popular tax breaks that Mr. Norquist and his allies stoutly defend.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “has decided to walk out on the same limb as Grover Norquist,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, told reporters last week. “It seems leader McConnell is willing to tank the economy for the sake of protecting tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jets.”
Mr. Obama didn’t name Mr. Norquist in his news conference Wednesday, but he cited the same tax breaks.
“I’ve said to some of the Republican leaders: You go talk to your constituents, the Republican constituents, and ask them, are they willing to compromise their kids’ safety so that some corporate-jet owner continues to get a tax break?” Mr. Obama said.
Republican lawmakers scoff at the notion that killing a $3 billion tax break for small jets would make a dent in the $14 trillion debt. But they have complicated their ability to parry the Democrats on such matters by signing the famous anti-tax “pledge” of Americans for Tax Reform, which Mr. Norquist heads.
All but a handful of House and Senate Republicans have signed it. By doing so, they vow to oppose any effort to increase marginal income tax rates and “any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”
In other words, even a “temporary” tax cut cannot be undone. Even a tax break that seems to have lost its purpose, when economic conditions change, cannot be touched unless it is offset elsewhere.
Some Senate Republicans have grown weary of Mr. Norquist’s strict interpretation of the pledge, and a mini-revolt occurred in mid-June.
Thirty-four of the Senate’s 47 Republicans voted to end a tax break for ethanol production, which has come under political fire in recent years. Mr. Norquist strongly opposed the move, and denounced its leader, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican.
Mr. Coburn, who says some revenue increases must join deep spending cuts to reduce the deficit, claimed a turning point.
“You’ve got 34 Republicans that say they’re willing to end this, regardless of what Grover says,” he told reporters. “That’s 34 Republicans that say this is more important than a signed pledge” to Mr. Norquist’s group.
Mr. Norquist is delighted that the pledge is making it harder for Republicans and Democrats to reach a spending accord that might include small tax hikes along with larger spending cuts.
“The Democrats have run into a brick wall,” he said, “and the pledge is there.”
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