Grover Norquist

Obama’s Extended Federal Family Responds to Sandy

Leo Gerard — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 07:40:15 -0500

In New Jersey, as Barack Obama and Chris Christie met last week to survey the devastation Hurricane Sandy caused, the President placed a reassuring hand on the heartsick governor’s shoulder. Later, the President embraced storm victim Donna Vanzant in Brigantine, N.J., and told her and all East Coast residents that he and the nation “are here for you.”

Here for you means the federal government would muster all its resources to help Americans devastated by a deadly hurricane to restore some sense of normalcy to their upturned lives and to help rebuild their homes and communities.

Americans unfailingly rally to the aid of those in need. A youngster helps grandma across the street. A community builds a wheelchair ramp for an injured veteran. Sometimes, though, the tragedy is too massive for the scale of help that families and neighborhoods can provide. Then Americans turn to the federal government to help them deliver safety and solace. This is among the most profound and basic duties of government. Barack Obama has insisted that it be performed well because he believes government can be – and must be – a force for good.
President Barack Obama greets New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on arriving in Atlantic City after Hurricane Sandy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It’s not a matter of big government or small government. Although, frankly, a government small enough to drown in a bathtub, as Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist seeks, would not be large enough to respond to catastrophes such as Sandy’s destruction across 15 states or to the 750 tornadoes that ripped through the South and Midwest, including Joplin, Mo., in April and May last year. And a federal government that fobbed off responsibility for emergency management to the states or to private enterprise, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he wanted to do during the GOP primary debates, would not be prepared to respond adequately to American catastrophes.

Romney has walked back those statements now, contending after Sandy hit that he wouldn’t eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But the nation has seen what happens when a president is careless about the federal government helping Americans during emergencies. That would be, specifically, former President Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

First, Bush chose patronage over qualifications in naming a FEMA director, appointing to the post an Arabian Horse Association functionary who had absolutely no experience or training in emergency management. Then when Katrina hit, the administration virtually ignored it – failing to respond to pleas for help from desperate governors and mayors; failing to cut short vacations, or even meals, to work on hurricane response, failing to provide available federal resources as Americans died in the Superdome.

In stark contrast, Obama demanded credentials when he selected his FEMA director. He went so far as to ignore party affiliation – appointing William Craig Fugate, a Republican. Fugate, who began his career as a firefighter and paramedic, was director of the Florida emergency management agency – a position that exposed him to rigors of responding to disasters, particularly hurricanes.

Even before Sandy struck the East Coast, Obama and Fugate began planning and coordinating a response. Proactively, the President called 20 governors and mayors to offer help and arrange expedited disaster declarations. He called Christie several times during the storm and gave the governor his personal phone number so Christie could reach him directly. He ordered FEMA and other federal officials to respond to calls from political leaders within 15 minutes. Everyone focused on the impending calamity.

Before the hurricane made landfall, FEMA organized search and rescue teams, sent 139 ambulances to New York, and established support centers with supplies like generators and blankets in New Jersey and Massachusetts. By Monday evening, when the storm hit New Jersey with winds of 80 miles an hour, FEMA had already delivered hundreds of thousands of ready-to-eat meals and bottled water for New Jersey residents who might need it. There would be no Superdome fiasco in New Jersey or New York.

By Wednesday, President Obama joined Christie in New Jersey to assess the devastation in person. A clearly exhausted Christie, who had previously been a vocal critic of the President, expressed strong support for Obama’s response to the storm, saying:

“The president has been all over this, and he deserves great credit.”

President Barack Obama embraces Donna Vanzant, owner of a New Jersey marina damaged by Hurricane Sandy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

When tragedy occurs, we all naturally turn to our families first, brothers and sisters, parents and cousins, aunts and uncles who we know we can depend on, who we know will give us comfort and relief.

Obama sees government as an extended family. He referred to the federal agencies he collected to respond to Hurricane Sandy as a federal family. We all have immediate biological families, but we all also belong to the American family. We share American experiences and values, privileges and responsibilities.

President Obama has said many times that he believes we all are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Here’s what he says in his speeches:

“Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together. We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up.”

That is what he sees American family members doing for each other. That is how Americans pull together to help fellow Americans struck by tragedy. And when the tragedy is of gargantuan proportions, Obama believes that to respond effectively, the federal family must be more than competent. It must be good to do good.

In addition to providing the bottled water and rescue teams, the federal family must, just as any good family member would, just as President Obama did in New Jersey, wrap consoling arms around the traumatized.

Are Republicans Ready To Drop "No-Tax" Pledge?

Dave Johnson — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:16:33 -0400

Republicans have been holding to a no-tax pledge for decades as a strategy to undermine government. But more and more people are noticing that our schools, roads, police and fire departments, bridges, courts, food-safety system -- and everything else non-military that our government does -- are starting to fall apart. At the same time, Republican-created anti-deficit hysteria is starting to backfire on Republicans themselves. So are some Republicans starting to back off?

But First

Before any deficit discussion begins people should be reminded of one very important and relevant fact: When 'W' Bush took office we had a huge budget surplus and we were on track to pay off the entire national debt in just ten years. In other words, our country's debt would be entirely paid off by now, and there would be no emergency at all. But Bush changed some things, and said the return of budget deficits was "incredibly positive news," and now we have a huge deficit and debt. The cause of our deficits and debt has implications for any discussion of what can be done about our deficits and debt.

The Norquist Pledge

The Norquist pledge is a pledge that Republican politicians take promising to oppose any increase in tax rates, and any reduction or elimination of tax breaks or subsidies. This is the House version, the Senate version is the same, without a district.

Taxpayer Protection Pledge
I, _____, pledge to the taxpayers of the (____ district of the) state of ______ and to the American people that I will: ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

The purpose of this anti-tax pledge is to force a reduction in government revenue, while redistributing wealth upward. Combined with huge increases in military spending (and other spending on conservative "clients" like oil and pharma) the result is ever-increasing government deficits and debt. Since the Reagan administration conservatives have intentionally created "strategic deficits." Conservatives believe this will "starve the beast," making the non-military portion of government "smaller," forcing cuts in those things conservative oppose -- health care, food stamps, environmental protection and especially enforcement of regulations on corporations.

Intentional Deficits

President Reagan reduced taxes on the wealthy, while greatly increasing military spending. This left behind huge deficits, and a dramatically-increased national debt. (It also pushed income distribution up to the top few.) President 'W' Bush used the same formula to reverse President Clinton's budget surpluses. This was effective and by the time President Obama took office the country had a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in a single year!

Now, with the deficits maneuvered to be sufficiently high for use scaring the pubic, Republicans are engaged in an effort to pursue the goals of this decades-long strategy. Without mentioning that just a few years ago we were paying off the debt but cut taxes on the rich and dramatically increased military spending, Republicans have been engaged in a drumbeat that the resulting debt is going to destroy the country. Just two years after holding the country "hostage" in order to force an extension of the Bush tax cuts, they are trying to claim that huge deficits must force cuts in non-military spending, to make government "smaller."

Is Deficit Hysteria Backfiring?

This drumbeat of deficit hysteria is working -- effectively scaring the public into believing that we must place a very high priority on cutting deficits. However, this is occurring when people with very high incomes are understood to be paying very low tax rates. As a result many of the public believe that cutting loopholes and increasing top tax rates should be done before budgets are cut -- if actually doing something about deficits is really the point. Many Republican politicians see that the public understands this, making it difficult for them to continue to pledge not to do it.

Huffington Post: Grover Norquist Pledge Against Taxes Attracts Fewer Republican Candidates,

Rep. Scott Rigell's (R-Va.) message for up-and-coming Republicans would have been considered political heresy just two years ago: You don't have to bow to Grover Norquist to win.

"My advice and counsel to 'Young Guns' would be to not sign the Americans for Tax Reform pledge," the Virginia Republican told The Huffington Post. The anti-tax oath authored by conservative activist Norquist had, until recently, been signed by almost every Republican in Congress or aspirant.

It isn't just Rep. Rigell,

Rigell is one of dozens of GOP challengers and incumbents who have declined, so far, to take the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Their objections range from personal to political. But underneath is the belief that being locked into a pledge to never support new revenues in a debt-reduction deal is unpalatable.

Just 45 of 83 of the Republican National Congressional Committee's current crop of so-called Young Guns have signed the no-tax pledge this election season, according to a Huffington Post analysis of pledge signatures.

The Huffington Post story discusses several other Republicans who are not signing the Pledge. (click through for more.)

Turning Point?

This could be a turning point, where drummed-up concern about deficits is backfiring on Republicans. If they are really concerned about deficits, of course they will undo the things that caused the deficits. A pledge to never raise taxes or undo loopholes is in the way of actual concern about deficits, and many Republicans understand that the public gets that.

Social Security: A Tale of Two Mitties

Richard Eskow — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:19:20 -0500

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the year of protecting Social Security, and the year of cutting Social Security. It was the age of defending Medicare, and the age of ending Medicare.

In other words, it was another day on the Mitt Romney campaign trail. This week Romney's evil twins (there isn't a good one) played both sides of the Social Security issue, but finally came down on the side of the party's power brokers.

That placed him squarely against its own rank and file, as a new video and recent polling both confirm.

But then, reversing himself is a Romney specialty. Last week the "effectively pro-choice" turned "pro-life" candidate went to the CPAC Conference to tell the world about his "extreme conservative" governorship of Massachusetts - Obamacare is Rightycare when Mitt does it - and it was all "we conservatives" this and "we conservatives" that.

(Does he drive to Shriners' conventions in one of those funny little Shriner cars, wearing a Shriner fez and talking about "we Shriners"?)

Then he directed his double vision toward Social Security and Medicare.

One Romney Makes Entitlements Safer ...

Yesterday Romney slammed President Obama on entitlements, saying "the president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors." He added that Obama "had nothing to say about making sure that those programs are solvent and permanent."

Romney's stance as a pro-entitlement champion echoed the GOP's "Seniors' Bill of Rights," which was a hallmark of their winning 2010 Congressional campaign. That plan insisted on "no cuts to Medicare to pay for another program: Zero."

Then, after the election, they promptly introduced the Ryan Plan to dismantle Medicare altogether. (Those who claim that it wouldn't end Medicare are living in an Alice-in-Wonderland world - and smoking the Cato-Piller's hookah ...) Romney didn't bother waiting.

... and One Romney Makes Them Small

Romney's CPAC speech was very specific about the cuts he'd like to make. He couldn't have been clearer. "Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable," said Romney, "not for the current group of retirees, but for coming generations."

See what he did there? Romney combined Social Security - a completely self-sustaining program - with Medicare, a program whose long-range problems are caused by precisely the kind of private-sector healthcare that Romney and his party defend.

And think about it: Would-be Social Security cutters like Romney are always telling us it's unsupportable because so many Baby Boomers are about to retire. (In reality, they largely prefunded their own retirement with increased contributions and other changes.) Yet, like Romney, they then turn around and say that it's "later generations" who must face Draconian cuts.

It doesn't make sense - but making sense isn't their goal. Cutting Social Security is. And Romney's happy to carry out the mission he's been given.

... and the One That Grover Gives You Doesn't Do Anything At All

Romney's the Thing With Two Heads, the man with two opinions. How can a person pull off a trick like that? Practice.

Usually Romney waits a little while before reversing himself, but for Social Security and Medicare he's accomplished a feat physicists once thought impossible for anything larger than a photon: He's managed to be in two places at once.

But that's Mitt. He's a "second variety" candidate, a "shmoo," a shapeshifter who will become whatever's expedient. To call him an empty suit is to grant him too much substance. He appears to have no emotional core except ambition and no values except the net present value of the next job-destroying investment.

Romney is exactly who Grover Norquist thinks he is: Someone who will do what he's told. And the orders have already been written, as Norquist helpfully explained:

"We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff ... The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate ... Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president ... his job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared."

That's where Mitt comes in.

(We had more to say about Romney's entitlement confusion on The Breakdown. There's audio here.)

Plan 59 From Outer Space

Besides, Romney already told us what he would do in his famous package of "59 economic proposals." There, as at CPAC, he promised that current retirees' benefits would not be affected and offers reductions in the already-inadequate cost of living adjustment - which is a benefit cut for current retirees too - as well as increases to the retirement age (in addition to those already underway, which nobody ever seems to mention. The next increase will amount to a 13 percent benefit cut for anyone born after 1959).

Romney's plan also states that Paul Ryan's plan to dismantle Medicare "makes important strides in the right direction by keeping the system solvent and introducing market-based dynamics," although he promises some unspecified differences.

Romney specifically excludes the one solution that is supported by most Americans, including most Republicans: Lifting the payroll tax cap so that it's assessed against more of the earnings of millionaires like himself.

Republican vs. Republican

That pits Romney and the Republican leadership squarely against their own base, as a recent poll shows: 69 percent of Republicans would rather raise the cap than cut benefits, including 67 percent of Tea Party members.

77 percent of those much-sought-after independents agree, as do 84 percent of Democrats.

Pollsters couldn't find anyone aged 18 to 29 who supported the Romney position.

Reality TV

That means Mitt's Plan 59 is going to tick of rank-and-file conservatives, as you can see in this video from my colleagues and pals at Social Security Works:

These conservatives have a firm grasp of the topic. One points out that Social Security is an insurance program, while another notes that people have paid into the program all their lives and are entitled to receive its benefits. Both statements are absolutely correct.

A young conservative in the video shows equal perspicacity by saying that good conservatives like him shouldn't vote for Mitt Romney.

But in the end, if he becomes the GOP nominee most of them will. It's an old trick: In 2010 the Republicans ran as defenders of Medicare and Social Security. They even created a "Seniors' Bill of Rights" that declared flatly: "No cuts." But as soon as they re-took the House they immediately started pushing Social Security cuts and created the Ryan Plan to gut Medicare.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm a conservative who votes Republican.

Action at a Distance

Contradictions be damned. Mitt soldiers on, his jaw firmly set and his head held high, marching resolutely in two directions at once. But the orders have been given and the stage has been set. We know where he'll really lead us if the two Mitts are elected President: He - or they - will cut Social Security and Medicare.

And if the last flickering embers of his conscience must die to do it, then so be it. "It's a far, far better thing we do today than we have ever done before ... "

If you want to serve power brokers like the Koch Brothers and Grover Norquist, you have to be willing to impose policies that vast majorities of voters - including your own base - overwhelmingly reject. Real leaders show us their one face, their true face. But if you want to serve the GOP's power elite then, as the old song says, "it takes two."

When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, Mitt Romney's showing them that he's just the men for the job.

Hey, GOP: Give the 99 Percent Some Lovin’

Leo Gerard — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:26:16 -0500

MTV needs to stop giving that creepy vampire guy and moony human girl in the “Twilight” series the “best kiss” prize in its annual movie awards because it’s Republicans who truly earned the trophy for the big wet smooches they lay on the 1 percent.

Just think of the GOP lovin’ that went into the Bush tax breaks that gave millionaires more than $125,000 a year and the middle class less than $1,000. Or the arduous embrace signified by cutting the capital gains tax to a rate lower than that on middle class income.

The GOP is a faithful lover to the 1 percent, steady and true. Last week, Republicans found themselves confronted with a choice between raising taxes on the 99 percent or on the 1 percent, and the GOP spared the millionaires. The GOP’s fidelity to the 1 percent is so strong that Republicans wavered on their promises – never raise taxes – and principles – tax cuts don’t have to be offset. As a result, the 99 percent is beginning to feel more than a little spurned by the GOP.

Since the days of the Bush breaks in 2001 and 2003, Republicans consistently have said that tax reductions stimulate the economy and the lost revenue needn’t be offset. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, asserted, for example: “You should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” The GOP didn’t pay for the Bush breaks, a decision that dramatically increased the deficit, which Republicans now say the 99 percent must pay by suffering slashed government services.

Similarly, Republicans have loyally upheld their solemn pledge to lobbyist Grover Norquist to never, ever raise taxes. Last year, for example, they GOP refused to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, contending that would be a tax increase, not the end of rates intended to be temporary.

To recap: The GOP vowed never to raise taxes. The GOP defines an expiring temporary tax cut as a tax increase. And the GOP believes tax reductions don’t have to be offset.

To serve the 1 percent, however, Republicans discarded all of that supposedly sacrosanct philosophy during last week’s struggle over extending the temporary payroll tax cut. Congress voted last December to decrease for one year the payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, putting an extra $1,000 in the hands of 160 million workers during a recession to pay bills.

This fall, President Obama and the Democrats proposed extending the cut another year, enlarging it by dropping the rate to 3.1 percent, and expanding it under certain circumstances to employers, who pay a matching amount. That would give the average family an extra $1,500 to spend, which would, according to Moody’s Analytics, inject as much as $120 billion into the economy and create 750,000 jobs.

Initially, the GOP opposed extending the tax cut – even though that would seem to violate their principal that restoring previous rates is a tax increase. Norquist must have taken to task the anti-payroll-tax-break Republicans because by last Tuesday, the GOP changed its mind.

Still, Republicans insisted, this tax cut would have to be offset – even though that demand violates their principal that tax cuts don’t need to be paid for.

Democrats proposed offsetting the cost of the extension with a 3.25 percent surtax on 350,000 millionaires and billionaires – the 1 percent.

That confronted lawmakers with this choice: Slightly increase taxes on the nation’s richest 350,000 or raise taxes on 160 million workers by allowing the payroll tax break to expire.

In the U.S. Senate, Democrats and one Republican, moderate Susan Collins of Maine, voted to give the 160 million the break, for a total of 51 votes, more than half. Every other Republican in the Senate sided with the nation’s richest 350,000, providing enough votes to defeat the tax break for the 99 percent – not by a majority but by filibuster.

Republicans then proposed instead to leave the tax at 4.2 percent and offset the extension by freezing the pay of federal workers through 2015 and slashing the federal workforce by 10 percent – a total of 210,000 public servants.

That would spare the wealthy and instead make federal workers pay, and kill jobs during a period of prolonged, painfully high unemployment. Democrats defeated that.

The payroll tax break is set to expire Dec. 31.

Where’s the GOP lovin’ for the 99 percent?

The GOP vote against extending and expanding the payroll tax break felt like a kick in the ass to the 99 percent. The Republican proposal to make middle class federal workers – instead of the nation’s wealthiest – bear the cost of extending the tax break seemed like the GOP was once again kissing the 1 percent’s ass.

The 99 percent is beginning to suspect the GOP will never treat them any better than Newt Gingrich treats his wives. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans told New York Times/CBS News pollsters in October that they believe Congressional Republicans favor the rich.

Hey, GOP, are your right wings just too short to embrace the 99 percent?

The Conservative Pledge To Encourage Big Companies To Send Jobs Away

Dave Johnson — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:27:39 -0400

Did you know that almost every conservative politician in the country has signed a pledge to encourage big multinational corporations to keep sending jobs out of the country?

Grover Norquist, head of the lobbying organization Americans for Tax Reform, is one of the leaders of the modern "conservative movement." Norquist is well-known (among certain circles) for his statement that he wants to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

As part of the conservative movement's long-term strategy to weaken and destabilize government, his organization gets conservative politicians to sign a Taxpayer Protection Pledge: "In the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, candidates and incumbents solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases." Almost every conservative politician in the country has signed this pledge.

Of course, the point of this is to destroy government's ability to govern. And, of course, with government, i.e. "We, the People," out of the way, something else necessarily fills the vacuum. And that something else is the large monopolistic corporations and extremely wealthy few that fund organizations like Americans for Tax Reform and the rest of the "conservative movement." (Quelle surprise.) This is why conservatives propose tax cuts as the solution to everything -- it is really about defunding government by causing the government to run out of money. This is why you will never, ever hear a conservative talk about any actual "spending cuts" they propose, with specifics, and how their proposed cuts will add up to actually cutting the deficit. It isn't about cutting the deficit, it is about getting rid of government's ability to regulate what these corporations do.

A Pledge To Encourage Companies To Kill Jobs

With that in mind, I have been hearing a very interesting line of attack on The Pledge in this election. If there is one thing the public is really, really angry about it is companies that close factories and ship jobs out of the country. In fact, there is a tax break that encourages companies to do this. Democrats in Congress have been trying to close that tax break. Every single Republican has been voting against closing this loophole and for one and only one reason -- closing this tax loophole for the big monopolistic corporations that ship our jobs out of the country would violate the Norquist Pledge.

Government Is We, the People Making The Decisions

Let's hope that this line of attack enables people to understand that "government spending" is money that is spent on We, the People, and that "less government" means less decision making by We, the People and more decision-making by ... guess who.

The Tax History Conservatives Want Us to Forget

David Sirota — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:53:19 -0500

Grover Norquist is regularly billed as one of the leading intellectual lights of the conservative movement - and I think you will agree that the arguments he made in a debate with me over taxes this morning on CNBC highlight not merely the shocking intellectual bankruptcy of the movement he leads, but just how out of touch Republicans in Washington really are.

The debate revolved around President-elect Obama's potential plans to put off raising taxes on the very wealthy. Norquist begins the debate with the claim - I kid you not - that "the economy is in the present state because when the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006 you knew those tax increases were going to come in 2010." He insisted that, "The stock market began to collapse as soon as you recognize that those old tax rates were coming back." Yes, because under "those old tax rates" - ie. Clinton-era tax rates - the economy was so much worse than it is today.

As you'll see, the CNBC reporters start laughing at Norquist, having trouble taking him seriously. And I must say, I really wasn't sure he was being serious - but, of course, he was. I went on to make the point that I've often made in the past - the point that conservatives simply want everyone to forget: Namely, that President Clinton faced down a recession in 1993 by raising taxes on the wealthy in order to finance an economic stimulus package, and the economy subsequently boomed.

That simple, undeniable bit of history undermines the entire structure of conservatives claim that raising taxes on the super-rich will hurt the economy. And as you'll see from Norquist's response, they simply cannot deal with that truth. Indeed, Norquist actually goes all the way back to the 1920s as his example that raising taxes on the wealthy impedes economic growth - somehow ignoring the history from 15 years ago. He then goes on to claim with a straight face that Franklin Roosevelt created the Great Depression (this, along with the "center-right nation" propaganda, seems to be the right's new talking point).

The question now is whether the Obama administration buys into Norquist's fact-free nonsense, or whether it musters the same courage President Clinton mustered in prudently raising taxes on the super-rich to responsibly finance an economic stimulus package. Sure, temporary deficits are acceptable right now - there's no arguing that. But doing what's necessary to minimize those deficits is also important.

In terms of policy, if, as Congressional Quarterly reports, Obama wants to enforce budget discipline on a necessarily large economic stimulus package, it will require generating additional revenue from the wealthy. In terms of raw politics, if Clinton's 43 percent of the vote gave him enough political capital to come into office during an economic downturn and do that, I'd say Obama and his 53 percent gives him enough political capital to do the same today. And I would argue that if Obama backs off his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy, he will effectively validate the false conservative frame that claims tax increases on the wealthy endangers an economy.

While I certainly agree with the CNBC reporter that the 2008 is different than the 1990s, it isn't different when it comes to taxes - we have very recent history that proves raising taxes on the wealthy in order to raise revenues for economic stimulus, if done prudently, helps an economy recover. That is the argument that nobody during this debate was able to undermine - and it is the argument conservatives fear most, because they know it is accurate.

Debating Grover Norquist, America's Leading Fake Populist

David Sirota — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:25:15 -0400

SEATTLE - This week on my national book tour, I had the opportunity to debate conservative leader Grover Norquist on KUOW - Seattle's NPR affiliate. The topic of the debate was my new book, THE UPRISING, and specifically the rise of populism in American politics. You can listen to the debate here - it begins about half way into the interview.

Norquist, one of the architects of the original conservative uprising of the 1980s and 1990s, is a good indicator of where the conservative movement is today. As you can hear, the Right is angry with the Bush administration for not being more conservative on a whole host of issues - and you can sense from Norquist how ideologically bankrupt conservatives really are today.

For a generation or so, the Right has dynamically adapted its reactionary ideas to sound like a populist, anti-Establishment, for-the-little-guy agenda. But thanks to all the crises we now face from those ideas - an energy crisis, stagnant wages, national security catastrophes, a global warming emergency - it has become much easier for progressives to unmask the Right as what I called Norquist: Fake populists.

The concept of fake populism is an important one as we move into the superheated general election campaign.

Just as Norquist tries in the debate to package environmental degradation, oil industry handouts and tax cuts for billionaires as policies designed to help us regular folks, so will John McCain try to present more NAFTA-style trade deals and more war in Iraq as populism. And the more we label it for what it is - fake populism - the more we will show the country the difference between a true majority agenda and the Beltway elitism of the Right.

What struck me most about the debate with Norquist is how truly out of touch with ordinary people he really is.

This is a person who in the face of $4.50 gasoline and $40 billion in ExxonMobil profits tells us that we should give away more policy goodies to the oil companies. This is a person who in the face of polls showing the public thinks the tax system is fundamentally unfair in the wake of the Bush tax cuts, says we should nonetheless push forward with even more regressive tax cuts. This is a person who in the face of massive budget deficits and social service cuts, says we should slash corporate tax rates, even though our effective corporate tax rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world. This is, in short, a person who is so insulated inside the Beltway and so coddled by the Big Money interests that have financed his career that he quite literally has no idea that there's an uprising going on throughout the country - and no official photos of him with statues of Ronald Reagan can hide that reality. He seems genuinely unaware of the trends on both the Right and Left that I report on in my book.

Of course, I praise Norquist at the beginning of the debate for his tactical brilliance in building a movement (and he is featured in my book because of this). The pressure he has put on Republicans from the Right has been remarkably effective - and progressives could learn a thing or two about the value of a more confrontational attitude towards Democrats on our own issues for our own uprising. That said, I think this debate shows that the conservative movement is indeed buckling under the bankruptcy of its ideas. And as we continue building our uprising and exposing their fake populism, we are getting closer to the truly exponential change that has marked other uprising moments in American history.

Listen to the full debate here, and then go pick up THE UPRISING at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore. Also, make sure to check the book tour schedule at www.davidsirota.com/uprising - I hope to see you on the trail!

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.