The deficit ’supercommittee’ and the taxpayer pledge
It appears there’s a reason Democrats have held up Grover Norquist and his “taxpayer protection pledge” as the obstacle to all that is good and fiscally responsible in Washington. That reason? They didn’t want Republicans to call their bluff, and show there isn’t a “party of no” approach to taxes holding up a deal.
First, a bit of background about Norquist, who leads a conservative advocacy group called Americans for Tax Reform. He and ATR are famous for enforcing a pledge not to raise taxes, one signed by many Republicans with eyes for state or federal office, including dozens in Georgia.
As President Barack Obama and members of Congress have debated how to solve the budget crisis, Norquist’s name has been invoked repeatedly. Not so much by Republicans trying to explain why they can’t raise taxes, but rather by Democrats who claim the GOP won’t risk stoking Norquist’s ire.
That notion hasn’t played out at the state level, at least not in Georgia. Seventy state legislators had signed the pledge as of February 2009: All but three voted for the fiscal 2010 budget, which eliminated tax relief grants for homeowners, and 48 of them voted for the hospital bed tax last year. The percentages were actually a bit worse among those who were still pledge signatories as of last month. Yet, just one of the 70 lost in a GOP primary.
At the federal level, Democrats who decry the pledge might do as much as anyone, Norquist included, to inflate its importance. That’s a mighty curious and counterproductive thing to do, if they truly are serious about working with Republicans to close the deficit.
One day, however, Norquist’s spell — or the appearance thereof — was bound to be broken. That day came last week, when GOP members of the congressional “supercommittee,” formed as part of the debt-ceiling deal and tasked with cutting deficits by $1.2 trillion during the next decade, said they offered $500 billion in revenue increases.
Half of those increases would come from capping deductions for individual taxpayers. Republicans — and Norquist — have long insisted on offsetting such increases with lower tax rates. Generally speaking, I favor that approach, too, though I recognize that some deductions are so narrowly tailored that they could be considered subsidies buried in the tax code.
But the GOP offer included only a partial offset, putting $250 billion toward deficit reduction. (Most of the rest of the $500 billion would come from asset sales.)
Since that first report, other figures have been bandied about regarding exactly how big a tax hike is being discussed. But two things have been clear all along: First, the GOP was indeed talking about a tax hike, despite the specter of Norquist. Second, it was a more Democrat-friendly offer, in the ratio of tax hikes to spending cuts, than Obama received, and ignored, from his own bipartisan debt commission.
All in all, it was an offer that stood to tick off Republicans’ Taxed Enough Already base — even though it was also an offer made public by freshman Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, past president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth, and previewed favorably in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen Moore, Toomey’s predecessor at the Club for Growth.
Yet, it was an offer supercommittee Democrats rejected out of hand.
For months, we’ve heard Democrats describe their supposed willingness to make cuts — reductions in future spending growth, really — to the budget-busting trio of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
All they needed, they said, were Republicans willing to meet them part of the way with tax hikes. Never mind that Speaker John Boehner agreed to hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes during this summer’s debt-ceiling talks, only for Obama to up the ante and ask for more.
Well, those Republicans showed up. And Democrats threatened to walk away.
Add in the gimmickry the supercommittee Democrats are trying to pass off as spending cuts, such as savings from a war in Iraq that is ending anyway, and we see the reason an anti-tax pledge caught on in the first place:
The tax hikes are always more real than the cuts.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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57 comments Add your comment
Jack
November 17th, 2011
12:38 pm
I agree with one of the above comments: Mandatory birth control for welfare recipients.
Republican Bloggers are INSANE
November 17th, 2011
12:39 pm
@Dusty November 17th, 2011 11:02 am Republican Back Stabber, Please go brush your teeth and gargle. Halitosis is your problem, you and redneckbleudog. This is a nice morning. Don’t contaminate the scene.
Hey Rusty Dusty – It takes one to know one! Maybe you need to take your own advice because you are STINKING UP THIS BLOG.
A nice hot bath might help!
Streetracer
November 17th, 2011
1:00 pm
Republican Back Stabbers:
Seems to me that you are doing exactly what you complain about others doing. Can you say “hipocrocsy”.
David Engage America
November 17th, 2011
1:59 pm
I have to say that Senator Toomey’s tax reform plan is one of the better ones to come out of the Supercommittee so far.
It is basically a scaled down version of the Bowles-Simpson proposal which is still the best plan to reform the tax code because eliminating tax expenditures and lowering marginal tax rates allows Congress to simplify the tax code, improve fairness, and spur economic growth. http://eng.am/noTDPF
This proposal will not be the last we hear from members of the Supercommittee, but it should at least be the new starting point.
Ultimately, the best thing the Supercommittee can do is put the Obama-Boehner grand bargain back on the table because it has no other choice but to go big or go home.
Rock me like a Herman Cain
November 17th, 2011
4:20 pm
Once again, jconservative, you are making sense to me.
I may be socially liberal and we may not agree on social issues, but I used to be moderate Republican when that party had room for folks like me. I find myself saying “yup, I agree” to your fiscal views.
Evelyn
November 17th, 2011
10:52 pm
Go Big, or go home, poorer. Without a public statement of agreement tomorrow from the Super Committee wealth is going to be massively destroyed by the end of the day , and it will take years to recover from this stupid political game playing. And why, over a long standing republican desire to impose a “revenue neutral” tax plan specifically designed to share a couple of points off the highest tax rate, supposedly to make the tax code simpler. REALLY?!!! That is ludicrous.
How is that going to help the housing market recover? And the economy? Middle class families spend nearly every dollar they make providing for their children. Let them do so. Wouldn’t it have been better to have provided $21 billion dollars of deductions for tutoring, rather than subsidizing the gambling losses of millionaires for the same period? This country needs to get it’s priorities in order, or its best days are behind it.
Senator Colburn issued the following statement on his official website:
Nov 13 2011
Dr. Coburn Releases Report Exposing Billions in Giveaways for Millionaires
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new report “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous” illustrating how, under the current tax code, the federal government is giving billions of dollars to individuals with an Annual Gross Income (AGI) of at least $1 million, subsidizing their lavish lifestyles with the taxes of the less fortunate.
“All Americans are facing tough times, with many working two jobs just to make ends meet and more families turning to the government for financial assistance. From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Multi-millionaires are even receiving government checks for not working.
“This welfare for the well-off – costing billions of dollars a year – is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and IOUs to be paid off by future generations. We should never demonize those who are successful. Nor should we pamper them with unnecessary welfare to create an appearance everyone is benefiting from federal programs,” Dr. Coburn said.
These billions of dollars for millionaires include $74 million of unemployment checks, $316 million in farm subsidies, $89 million for preservation of ranches and estates, $9 billion of retirement checks, $75.6 million in residential energy tax credits, and $7.5 million to compensate for damages caused by emergencies to property that should have been insured. All and all, over $9.5 billion in government benefits have been paid to millionaires since 2003. Additionally, millionaires borrowed $16 million in government backed education loans to attend college. On average, each year, this report found that millionaires enjoy benefits from tax giveaways and federal grant programs totaling $30 billion. As a result, almost 1,500 millionaires paid no federal income tax in 2009.
Republican Puppets/Monkey See Monkey Do
November 18th, 2011
9:37 pm
Norquist’s name has been invoked repeatedly. Not so much by Republicans trying to explain why they can’t raise taxes, but rather by Democrats who claim the GOP won’t risk stoking Norquist’s ire.
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Republicans CANNOT THINK FOR THEMSELVES. They are puppets with Norquist pulling their strings.
I hear that a Republican senator has found a clich in the Norquist pledge that would make it NULL AND VOID!