After years, Grover Norquist, the chubby-faced GOP kingmaker with the pseudo beard, is watching his formidable clout weaken. In the face of a determined President, his loyalists are beginning to ignore their oath of fealty, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
What’s more, one or Mr. Norquist’s staunchest soldiers, Senator Jim DeMint, a Tea Party icon, has deserted. The South Carolina Senator announced on December 6 that he is abandoning his Senate seat to assume the presidency of the conservative Heritage Foundation, an assisted living facility for feeble GOP ideas.
Also ,South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, Georgia Sen. Saxby Chamblis, Arizona Senator John McCain, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and New York Rep. Peter King and Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell have inched away from Mr. Norquist’s no-tax-hike demand.
Plus, Lesley Stahl noted on 60 Minutes (Dec. 9, 2012) that several newly elected GOP Representatives have refused to take the Norquist pledge.
These developments cheer many U.S. citizens who have deplored the stubborn. Counter -productive and corrosive power of Norquist and his Tea Party cohorts.
The catalyst for change among the GOPers is the so-called Fiscal Cliff, the law that blends universal tax raises and spending cuts in an attempt to reduce the federal budget. The law takes effect on January 1 unless substitute legislation can be passed.
President Obama has been wonderfully stubborn in demanding that, to avoid the toxic mixture of tax raises and spending cuts, he wants a law that raises taxes on those who make more than $250,000 a year. He would leave the tax rate as it is for those earning below that amount. He also says he is prepared to make significant cuts in spending. Many polls have indicated that a large majority of Americans like the President’s idea.
But as the world knows, Republican House members who cherish Norquist’s no- tax-raise philosophy as an article of faith refuse to go along with the President’s plan. This despite the widespread belief that the President’s plan is workable and fair.
Most Americans want the Republicans to yield. And if they do, their yielding may tip off a decline of the Republican Right wing’s passionately wrong-headed and unpatriotic no-compromise approach to legislation.
David Brooks, the New York Times’ famed conservative columnist, noted early this month (Dec. 4; Op Ed page) that the GOP Right is “stuck in a miserable position.”
Mr. Brooks points out that the majority of Americans have said they will blame Republicans if there is no deal to avoid the Fiscal Cliff. The business community desperately wants the issue to be resolved and is tending to blame the Republicans for failure to compromise. Mr. Brooks predicts, “The national security types and defense contractors who hate the prospect of sequestration—the tax hike, spending cut law—will turn against them.”
Mr. Brooks adds that the Republicans will have to give in on the tax-hike for the wealthy. Otherwise Republicans will be taxing the middle class to “serve the rich—shafting Sam’s Club to benefit the country club.”
In a December 6 article, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. pointed out that “…elections are 2x4s and many conservatives seem to realize the need to understand what just hit them.”
What hit them is the fact many citizens long for Norquist and his no-tax henchmen and Tea Party acolytes to shut up and go away. There’s now hope that might happen
---Gus Gribbin
Several good lines in your blog, Glimpse. You might have added that Boehner demoted 4 recalcitrant House members last week further weakening the Tea Party Wingnuts.
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