Patiently whittling away at the American Dream
by digby
Michael Grunwald’s interview with Grover Norquist is just … depressing. Norquist plays a long game. And slowly but surely he’s been winning, just by attrition.
MG: The fiscal cliff deal in 2013 did raise taxes on everyone making more than $450,000 a year, and you were actually OK with that.
GN: That was a phenomenal victory. All the Bush tax cuts were going to expire on January 1. All Obama had to do was twiddle his thumbs and go for a walk, and taxes were going to increase by $5 trillion over a decade. He would have gotten the largest tax increase in the history of western civilization. Not only didn’t he do that, he allowed 85 percent of the Bush tax cuts to be made permanent, for 99 percent of the country.
MG: But taxes went up, and you were OK with it. A lot of people expected you to take the maximalist position, that you can’t vote for anything that allows taxes to go up.
GN: The pledge has been a powerful tool because it’s written down, it doesn’t move, it’s simple. It’s one line: You can’t vote for net tax increases. It’s a binary thing: Fred either voted to raise taxes from the status quo or he didn’t. It’s a guardrail. When the law says a tax cut has lapsed, I can’t say that the failure to renew it is a tax increase, even if I want it renewed. Yes, voters might think that, but the pledge is the pledge. If I changed the pledge to fit the circumstances, Harry Reid would be right when he says, ‘Oh, Republicans just do whatever is Grover’s thought of the day.’
MG: My one quibble is that you make it sound like Republicans snookered Obama into cutting taxes for most Americans. I think he was happy to cut taxes for all but the very wealthy. Even Democrats are coming around to the Grover way!
Sigh…
Let’s not forget the other side of Grover’s equation which is to cut government services. That also happened in dramatic fashion in those budget deals. Sequestration is still in effect and there’s almost no chance those vital services for poor people will ever be reinstated. These things are going to have to be done over from scratch — and that’s not easy.