All you political junkies are very familiar with Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform. He’s one of the mist powerful men in the country, mainly because he makes Republicans sign a ridiculous pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstance. 95% of Congressional Republicans have sworn their allegiance to Grover Norquist above that of the country. That’s why this was big news yesterday:
In other words, according to Mr. Norquist’s interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue — the cost of extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another decade — without being accused of breaking their promise. “Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase,” Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn’t violate the pledge? “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.
So now Republicans have permission to let the Bush tax cuts expire (they don’t have the power to stop this anyway). At first Norquist denied he said this but the WaPo had audio. ATR released a statement that they opposed letting the cuts expire. Interestingly, the statement didn’t dispute that letting them expire is not breaking the pledge.
I think it’s ridiculous and depressing that this unelected extremist is about to cause our country to go into default. But here we are, in 2011 – a post-factual world where a party gains by tanking the economy.