OPINION:
The Dirty Harry of tax and government reform is Grover Norquist.
Dirty Harry Norquist, president of Americans For Tax Reform (atr.org), has never seen a tax increase he supports, which should immediately put him at the head of the line for a Presidential Medal of Freedom once Mitt Romney is elected. If there was a Hall of Fame of Common Sense, a huge statue of Grover Norquist would at be the front door.
Dirty Harry Norquist and crew released their “2012 Cost of Government Day” report, which would be more aptly titled “2012 Fedzilla Slopfest Report.”
ATR’s report states that the ordinary American has to work until July 15 to pay for the cost of local, state and federal government, which means that government beast known as Fedzilla consumes more than 50 cents of every dollar we earn and then borrows and spends hundreds of billions more each year that we don’t have.
Fedzilla is growing fatter, less accountable and less transparent by gorging itself on our tax dollars. Instead of tightening Fedzilla’s fiscal belt, government bureaucrats just buy him bigger belts and suspenders, and he gets fatter and smellier each day. The only good pig is a dead pig.
Regrettably, there are way too many intellectually stunted Americans who support this gluttonous and irresponsible spending curse. They are called socialists. Socialists believe in Keynesian economics, which supports government control and meddling in our economy. It’s akin to Jerry Sandusky managing a little boys’ football team. Another, more accurate name for Keynesian economics is Kamikaze economics.
In an effort to control spending, Dirty Harry Norquist has got GOP politicians in a tax stranglehold by requesting each of them sign a pledge to never vote to raise taxes. That rocks. I recommend they also be requested to sign a pledge to slash spending at every opportunity.
With Dirty Harry Norquist’s quote as its guiding light — “My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” — ATR developed tax and government reforms that will allow us to keep more of our money, ignite the economy, and put Fedzilla on a diet that would render the pig small enough to fit into a little dog’s traveling kennel.
ATR believes in a flat tax, eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, killing the death tax, and expanding tax-free savings accounts. That’s real power to the taxpaying people.
Common-sense tax reforms drive liberal loons even loonier, as liberals rarely see a tax they don’t support, including increasing taxes on the so-called “wealthy,” which really means in liberal doublespeak almost everyone.
ATR knows our continued levels of deficit spending and lack of entitlement reform is practicing the suicidal economic principle of Kamikaze economics, which is why the group believes our government should give fiscal sanity a try.
The bottom line is that we are taxed too much because government is involved in too many things in which it has no constitutional authority, no expertise and no limits on how many of our tax dollars it consumes.
Thankfully, Dirty Harry Norquist was listening when Ronald Maximus Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
Paying for government until July 15 each year is an anti-American travesty.
Ted Nugent is an American rock ’n’ roll, sporting and political activist icon. He is the author of “Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto” and “God, Guns & Rock ’N’ Roll” (Regnery Publishing).
Please read our comment policy before commenting.