On Sunday night, 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft profiled the man who’s done more than anyone to ensure that Congress’ budget-slashing supercommittee goes down in flames: anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist.
Norquist, who runs the group Americans for Tax Reform, is best known for his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” Those who sign the pledge, usually Republican members of Congress, vow to oppose all tax increases. “Pledge” signers include 270 members of Congress, among them House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), as well as every GOP presidential candidate except for Jon Huntsman. Indeed, the refusal of any notable Republican in Congress to stomach tax increases as part of this summer’s debt ceiling deal or the supercommittee’s plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the national deficit is owes largely to Norquist’s “Pledge.” Those who break it face Norquist’s wrath when re-election time rolls around. Norquist told Kroft his organization will fund ads opposing that candidate “to encourage them to go into another line of work, like shoplifting or bank robbing, where they have to do their own stealing.”
via In Grover Norquist’s World, Ronald Reagan Is a “Rat Head in a Coke Bottle” | Mother Jones.
