Yet another prominent Republican has added his name to the list of those for whom the allure of the Grover Norquist “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” has lost its luster.
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has announced that he will no longer honor his commitment to the Norquist pledge wherein he promised not to raise taxes under any circumstances whatsoever. Appearing on a local Georgia television program, Chambliss said, “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge. If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.”
While Chambliss expects Norquist to push back on his defection by supporting a primary challenge to Senator Chambliss when he stands for re-election in 2014, Chambliss has decided to take his chances, noting, “But I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”
While Saxby Chambliss’ sentiment is admirable, is it possible that he has done the math and concluded that the Norquist modus operandi of going after any Republican that dare defy him just doesn’t pack the punch it once possessed?
Judging from the 2012 election results, there is reason to believe that Grover Norquist’s days of bullying candidates into doing his bidding may be a thing of the past.
Going into the elections, 279 Congressional incumbents—along with 286 challengers—had signed the anti-tax pledge. However, at a time when the polls point to an overwhelming number of Americans favoring a rise in the tax rates for the nation’s very wealthiest, some 57 Republican House incumbents or challengers who signed the pledge went down to defeat while 24 GOP sitting Senators or those seeking a seat lost in their race.
Included among the high profile, pledge-signing losers were Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), former Wisconsin Governor and cabinet member Tommy Thompson (R-WI) and two-time loser Linda McMahon (R-CT). Over in the House, long time Congressmen Dan Lungren got beat after a constituent publically challenged him for signing the pledge while two GOP incumbents who had received direct funding from Norquist’s organization, Americans For Tax Reform, in an effort to save their seats, were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, GOP Senate leaders such as Bob Corker (R-TN), John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), have become more vocal in their opposition to Grover Norquist and his tactics as has leading conservative voice, Bill Kristol.
Adding what might be the final nail in the coffin for Mr. Norquist’s brand of political blackmail is the fact that the likely GOP frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016, Gov. Jeb Bush—while highly supportive of keeping taxes low—has steadfastly refused to sign the tax pledge saying, “I don’t believe you outsource your convictions and principles to people.” The younger Bush follows in the footsteps of his father, President George H.W. Bush, who earlier this year made his own feelings completely clear when he remarked, “The rigidity of those pledges is something I don’t like. The circumstances change and you can’t be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist. It’s – who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”
Good question—who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?
While he has managed to become more famous than most, at the end of the day, Grover Norquist is a lobbyist.
In fact, according to Jack Abramoff—the disgraced lobbyist who went to jail after entering a guilty plea to three criminal felonies involving defrauding American Indian tribes and corrupting public officials—Mr. Norquist’s organization served as a conduit for funds that flowed from Abramoff’s clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns.
It makes sense that the GOP is now breaking their promise on tax hikes. As of now, refusing to do so could cost them their seat in 2014.
#1 by Richard Warnick on November 26, 2012 - 5:46 pm
Of course, the Senate has already passed the bill to restore the top income tax rate to where it was in 2001. No Republican in the House of Representatives that I know of is talking about raising tax rates.
#2 by Richard Warnick on November 26, 2012 - 6:13 pm
Three weeks after the election, David Plouffe is already talking about betraying the voters with a so-called Grand Bargain that we don’t want.
#3 by Nathan Erkkila on November 26, 2012 - 6:44 pm
Then they lose their seat. It’s as simple as that.
#4 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 26, 2012 - 8:31 pm
Richard, you mis-describe the bill that the Senate passed. The Senate bill (S. 3412), passed on July 25, 2012, would extend current tax rates for lower- and middle-income persons, would increase tax rates on higher-income persons, would extend for one year (through 2013) certain tax provisions that expire at the end of 2012, and would patch the alternative minimum tax for one year only (2012).
#5 by cav on November 26, 2012 - 8:52 pm
I never ‘got’ Grover, but I never got Karl Rove, Eric Cantor, John McCain or Sarah Palin or ole Saxby the swine.
But when any of their ilk, try blaming the Bush Failures on those greedy bastard retirees, teachers, and snow-plow operators, I do start to ‘get’ that the ‘reality’ they’ve created is rife with the pathological.
I’d like to see them all photo-shopped out of the picture;
You can’t negotiate with terrorists.
#6 by cav on November 26, 2012 - 9:30 pm
Knewt! Santorum!
#7 by Richard Warnick on November 27, 2012 - 9:20 am
S. 3412 was called the “Middle Class Tax Cut Act,” but of course it would extend the tax cuts for the rich on the first $250,000 of income. The upper end of “middle class” is $100,000 in family income.
I don’t even know anybody who makes $250,000, and those are the people who would benefit the most.
I guess we ought to be amazed this even got voted on, because only 3% of bills introduced in the Senate ever get to the floor due to Republican obstruction.
#8 by cav on November 27, 2012 - 9:38 am
First of all, let’s be quite plain. I don’t care if Saxby Chambliss dresses in fatigues, grows his hair into a floor-length ponytail, and runs a drum-circle in his local Occupy Peckerwood encampment for the next 30 years, it still won’t make up for the indecent campaign he ran against Max Cleland in 2002. I think that campaign marked him as a penis in a necktie for the rest of his life. Now that we know where we stand, what do we make of his “bold” stand at the end of last week in which he bravely announced that he would “break” the “pledge” he took to Grover Norquist to never, ever to allow taxes to rise on his watch? Hurrah, said the centrist chorus in the Beltway. Bipartisanship is just around the corner there.
Horse hockey.
(And the same goes for the rest of these brave souls. “New tax revenues” is a dodge to keep the rest of the political class from looking at the top rate. This is the old “close everybody’s loopholes” scam, which inevitably will fall hardest on that great majority of Americans who can’t afford the best tax lawyers.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/saxby-chambliss-tax-pledge-112612
#9 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 9:42 am
Doesn’t change the fact that you mischaracterized the bill.
#10 by Richard Warnick on November 27, 2012 - 9:56 am
I did not.
#11 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 10:39 am
If you had to choose a higher rate and $X amount of revenue from the stinking rich and a not a higher rate and $2X of revenue from the stinking rich, which would you prefer?
#12 by Richard Warnick on November 27, 2012 - 12:51 pm
I’ll take the unicorn, please. Oh wait, there aren’t any unicorns.
#13 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 2:39 pm
Shows how little you know if you call statistical history and fact “unicorns”.
#14 by Richard Warnick on November 27, 2012 - 4:32 pm
The only way to raise revenue is to raise tax rates.
#15 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 4:36 pm
You are factually wrong.
If that were true then the US would not have the highest nominal rates and among the lowest revenues in the world. If that were true then Canada would not collect more with an 18% rate than the UD does with a 35% rate. You are the Grand Master of Unicorns Fairies.
#16 by Richard Warnick on November 27, 2012 - 4:45 pm
Romney lost the election. Some tax rates are going up a little bit. Deal with it.
#17 by Larry Bergan on November 27, 2012 - 4:47 pm
But Saxby Chambliss loves his country and Max Cleland only lost three limbs fighting for it. He still has one limb. What’s that all about.
I believe Chambliss could have made advertisments endorsing Clelend and he still would have lost on the first real rollout of the voting machines. The Utah rollout was based on the Georgia model.
Hopefully, Saxby is seeing writing on the wall concerning the demise of that little, unshaven, nerdy Norquist.
#18 by cav on November 27, 2012 - 5:35 pm
Richard, seems your ‘fact checker’ has him/herself a little obsession going on. Jaws of steel. I bet you just lurv being lurved.
#19 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 5:47 pm
Yes, an obsession with reality as opposed to hallucinations. Richard has an obsession with unicorns and fairies.
The GOP won the House. We didn’t elect a diktator. Deal with it.
#20 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 27, 2012 - 6:41 pm
“The most remarkable lesson from Canada is that territorial systems are capable of yielding substantial and consistent tax revenues, even through periods of recurring tax cuts (Figure 19). Canada has lowered its tax rate from 42 percent to 27.6 percent since 2000, yet tax revenues have tended to grow faster than GDP. The Canadian territorial system has consistently out-collected the U.S. worldwide system despite higher tax rates in the U.S.”
http://taxfoundation.org/article/global-perspective-territorial-taxation
#21 by cav on November 27, 2012 - 6:53 pm
On Tuesday, Laura Ingraham lashed out at Congressional Republicans who have indicated publically that they would be willing to waiver on their pledge to not raise taxes in the wake of President Barack Obama’s reelection. Ingraham warned that Congressional Republicans need to get concessions from their Democratic colleagues or face a devastating midterm election cycle in 2014.
“I’m so tired of Obama putting a gun to the head of the American people, and Republicans saying ‘oh, what are we going to do?’”
I’ve dealt with a lot of bullshit, the last twenty years, what you’re putting up is pretty small caliber but equally delusional.
#22 by Larry Bergan on November 27, 2012 - 7:06 pm
Nathan Erkkila:
The only words on your post that can be attributed to you are the title and:
I don’t like to tell posters how to post, but unless you work for Forbes Magazine you probably should have placed your entire first portion in blockquotes to prevent us from thinking you wrote it.
Just sayin’
#23 by cav on November 27, 2012 - 7:15 pm
Benen:
“Call it irony or call it coincidence: Mitt Romney’s share of the popular vote in the 2012 presidential race is very likely to be 47 percent.”
Heh, indeedy.
#24 by cav on November 27, 2012 - 11:41 pm
Read:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/26/1164823/-The-GOP-tax-plan-Leave-no-billionaire-behind
#25 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 1:33 pm
“The only way to raise revenue is to raise tax rates.”
This statement is so ignorant that it should be thrown in the Troll Bucket.
The US has in fact raised more revenue with lower rates in the past.
Other countries raise more revenue with lower rates right now.
There are a bazillion ways to raise revenue without raising rates. Warren Buffett took a $30 million itemized deduction for charitable contributions. Take that away from him and his taxes would go up a lot. Done deal.
#26 by Richard Warnick on November 28, 2012 - 1:42 pm
Put it this way: you can raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by allowing the “temporary” Bush tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers, or you can keep the rates the same and wipe out almost every tax deduction on the books.
So, instead, why not do a small 4.6% tax rate hike on the top bracket?
#27 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 3:20 pm
Show me your source which says that raising the top marginal rate to 39.6% only on 2% of people will raise $1.6 trillion.
#28 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 3:23 pm
From your source:
“Wiping out all tax expenditures — the official name for the deductions, credits and other loopholes addling the tax code — for the top 2 percent of earners would raise about $2 trillion over 10 years.”
So you could raise $2 Trillion only from the wealthy, not one penny from everyone else, without raising rates. But you said it cannot be done. Your source says you are dead wrong. Thank you!
#29 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 3:29 pm
Again from your source proving that you are wrong:
“The centrist research group Third Way ran the numbers on a White House proposal to let the Bush-era tax cuts on the top two rates expire, for example. Third Way also imagined:
1. increasing the estate tax
2. limiting the value of itemized deductions and
3. carrying out the “Buffett Rule,” which ensures that households earning more than $1 million a year pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. That package of changes increased revenue by about $1.6 trillion over 10 years.”
So your 4.6% alone does not even come close to getting $1.6 million. Your source shows you are wrong.
#30 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 3:31 pm
Again from your source proving that you are wrong:
“As policymakers seek to address the fiscal cliff, two Third Way papers offer a warning to both parties that purely ideological fixes will not solve our fiscal crisis.
This report explodes the myth that the long-term deficit can be solved mainly by taxing the rich. If we don’t touch entitlements and we do soak the rich, our annual deficit in 2040 will be a staggering $3.3 trillion (in 2012 dollars). While some Democrats, such as President Obama, have called for a balanced plan, too many in the base of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement claim that boosting taxes on the wealthy will largely fix our budget woes. As the data shows, that’s simply wrong.”
#31 by Richard Warnick on November 28, 2012 - 4:12 pm
You need to read more carefully. To get that $2 trillion, they would need to raise the tax rates on capital gains and dividends. And eliminating virtually every tax deduction would be disruptive to the housing market and the economy in general.
My proposal, you may recall, is to reset ALL tax rates back to Clinton-era. The CBO estimates $950 billion in revenues and interest reduction on the National Debt over ten years from the Obama administration’s plan to make the Bush tax cuts permanent for 98 percent of taxpayers (President Obama is claiming $1.6 trillion, supposedly because some deductions would be eliminated, but that’s fantasy). But why do that if your goal is to end deficit spending? If ALL the Bush-Obama Tax Cuts For The Rich expire, then there will be no argument for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
#32 by Shane on November 28, 2012 - 4:28 pm
So brewski is part of the conservapedia and conservative fact checker movement? Hilarious….
#33 by cav - FAT checker on November 28, 2012 - 5:32 pm
The President, in fact.
#34 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 28, 2012 - 6:49 pm
You said:
“you can raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by allowing the “temporary” Bush tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers,”
You are wrong, as your source proves.
#35 by Richard's Fact Checker on November 29, 2012 - 4:04 am
“There would be no deduction for charitable giving, or close to none, angering wealthy donors and nonprofit directors.”
So what. Let them be angry.
“The home mortgage interest deduction would vanish, hurting the housing market just as it has started to turn around.”
No. You said that taxes don’t affect behavior, so under your position it will not affect housing prices.
“Preferential tax treatment of capital gains and dividends would disappear, probably throwing the markets into a sell-off.”
No. You said that taxes don’t affect behavior, so under your position it will not affect stock prices.
I love it when you prove yourself to be wrong.