He has been called the “most powerful man in Washington that you’ve never heard about.” Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, was responsible for getting the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress to sign a pledge never to increase taxes. Norquist was the guest speaker at the annual Lincoln/Reagan Dinner at Olde Breton Inn in Leonardtown sponsored by the St. Mary’s County Republican Central Committee (SMCRCC).
Norquist said there was a time in the country in which there was very little difference between Democrats and Republicans, other than Republicans were north of the Mason Dixon Line. He said there were little old ladies in Mississippi who agreed with Reagan but voted for McGovern because they had always voted Democrat. Norquist said the difference between Nixon and Kennedy is they wanted to raise taxes “bigger and extremely bigger.”
Norquist said that President Reagan changed the parties into more philosophical differences. Looking out over the audience sitting at round tables he noted that everyone there wants “to be left alone.” They may have different religions, have different personal concerns, but the one thing that united them was that they wanted to be left alone in pursuing those interests.
He said Democrats sitting around their tables are made up of big-city-machine politicians, members of the “dependency machine” and what he called “coercive utopians.” He said, “They have a list of things that they want you to do and don’t want you to do…and they want to government to do it.”
Norquist was critical of the way George W. Bush handled things. “Every crisis gave us more spending,” he said. That led to the creation of the tea Party movement, “I had no idea it would be as successful as it was,” he noted.
He stands firmly behind Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. “It’s an obvious fix to the problem,” he added. And, he supports the Sequestration as just a first step towards reducing taxes.
Norquist said that President Obama made a mistake in January, which will doom his second term, by eliciting a compromise on the Fiscal Cliff which keeps in place the Bush tax cuts for the majority of Americans. He said the president will now have nothing left to bargain with the Republicans.
I am in favor of compromise on the road to liberty,” Norquist said, but he added that since the differences of opinion between Democrats and Republicans are now a matter of principle, there is no room for compromise. Instead he said nothing will get done until 2016 or 2020 when Republicans take control of the presidency and the two houses of Congress.
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