Quote of Day

“Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years... He's not going to have any fun at all; he may just have to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won't be any fun to be here, because he won't be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to.”

Grover Norquist

Norquist needs to lay off the bath salts.

Alan Simpson v. Grover Norquist

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Alan Simpson publicly disses Grover Norquist on Andrea Mitchell's show.

Mitchell:

Do you have any impure thoughts about Grover Norquist?

Alan Simpson:

Plenty. But you know, here’s a good guy with a very bad idea and he was gathering up those signatures back in the ’80s and the early ’90s when inflation was zip, when unemployment was zip, and anybody who would sign anything before they come to Congress and hear the debate and participate in it hopefully and get in to the floor, management and the amending process and the conference committee, those people I mean why would you do that? It’s like selling your soul!

Now Grover, I said, would be irrelevant in two years, and I say that– he’s got about another year and a half to go– he will be irrelevant. This guy is a zealot. A zealot is one who, having forgotten his purpose, redoubles his efforts, and he sees the crumbling of the great house of cards.

It’s like Jarvis out in California back in the late ’70s. He’s left schools destitute, he’s left institutions destitute. You can’t come in and play this kind of a game when everything has changed in America, and this time everything has changed because it’s all coming to pass on December 31st, and Grover-babe is losing a person a day and he knows it. So what does he use to cover that? Cutesies. Little smart Alecs. I know that. I don’t know who else does that. I have done that.

He is becoming irrelevant. And you can see it in his eyes. He knows the game is up. Because good people of good faith have decided that instead of being Republicans, or Democrats, they’re Americans. And instead of being beholden to Grover Norquist and the AARP, they’re beholden to the United States of America. Those guys are going to take their lumps.

"Grover Babe"? Interesting choice of words.

Rep. Peter King went after Norquist today. I often wondered when establishment Republicans were going to get tired about being pushed around by Norquist. It looks like I now have my answer.

Grover Norquist v. Peter King

This was a rather dumb comment by Grover Norquist. The anti-tax zealot had this exchange with Piers Morgan about Rep. Peter King.

Norquist hit back, telling CNN's Piers Morgan, "I hope his wife understands the commitments last a little longer than two years or something."

"That was a bit below the belt, Grover," Morgan objected.

King fired back.

“I don’t think he’s ever met me, certainly he’s never met my wife. And he better hope he doesn’t. She’ll knock his head off," King told Politico.

It is never a good idea to bring in spouses into political fights.

King is one of the most prominent Republicans to break Norquist's anti-tax increase pledge. For this Norquist has called him a "weasel." Obviously, King did not kindly.

"I really don't care about Grover Norquist. It was a cheap thing to do," King said. "He's being a lowlife."

Norquist thinks he can still bully elected Republicans and get them to yield. Thatdoesn't work anymore. A wiser man would play nice and learn how to console Republican fears over the leverage President Obama now has on taxes. Norquist is neither wise or nice.

Quote of the Day

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"So how do you deal with someone who comes to stop government? … Grover wandering the earth in his white robe saying he wants to drown government in the bathtub. I hope he slips in there with it."

Alan Simpson, expressing some less than kind feelings about Grover Norquist. Matthews was left speechless by Simpson's comment.

Vern Buchanan: Deficit Peacock

Vern Buchanan is a Republican deficit peacock. Buchanan cited a Congressional Budget Office report that tort reform would save $50 billion over ten years. Buchanan is making up that number. A 2008 CBO report said tort reform would only save 0.5 percent from health care costs. A 2004 CBO report found that tort reform would only save 2 percent. Republicans support tort reform because attorneys tend to donate more to Democrats than Republicans. Grover Norquist spelled that out.

"And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them."

Buchanan spent more than any member of Congress on mailers to his constituents.

In the first quarter of 2011, House records show, Buchanan spent $142,198 on mailings and other means of mass communication. That was more than any other representative, and about 19 times the average expenditure of $7,500. Among his colleagues, 209 representatives got by without spending any money in that quarter, according to House records.

That is $142,198 Buchanan spent is federal tax dollars.

Why the Merit Award Program Does Not Work

Duval County School Board Chairman W.C. Gentry recently took part in a protest against Gov. Rick Scott's education cuts. The Florida legislature is writing legislation attacking teacher tenure. Republicans will tell you that that tenure is destroying education. The truth is teachers unions give to Democrats. Republicans want to destroy part of the Democratic Party base.

GROVER NORQUIST: "We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012," he says. "And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them."

A recent Education Resource Strategies study proved that inexperienced teachers, not tenure, is what is hurting Duval County schools.

The Duval County School Board reacted to a report Tuesday that students in Duval County's lowest-performing elementary schools were two times more likely to have novice teachers and 3.5 times less likely to have teachers who receive incentive pay.

Those were among the findings from Education Resource Strategies, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit hired by the school system to look at how it uses its resources and comparing that with other large urban districts.

Board Chairman W.C. Gentry called the report "tremendously helpful" and said it's "startling and totally unacceptable" that there are so many novice teachers in low-performing schools.

The lowest performing schools are less likely to have teachers receiving Merit Award Plan bonuses. Getting rid of tenure isn't going to excite the next generation of college students to go into education. Duval Teachers United President Terrie Brady notes that lowest performing schools are more likely to have children who do not speak English or in special education programs. Merit Award Plan bonuses are more likely to be awarded to schools from better income neighborhoods.

The Merit Award Program is the updated version of the failed STAR plan.

The Merit Award Program allows students to take state, national or locally developed tests besides the FCAT, and those test results will account for "no less than 60 percent" of an educator's assessment.

The Merit Award Program is better but still not the answer

Florida Chamber of Commerce Not Interested In Reform

Mark Wilson of the Florida Chamber of Commerce couldn't hide his glee to the St. Petersburg Times editorial board. Wilson knows that the Florida Chamber of Commerce owns the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott.

"If we don't have a good three or four years … then we've blown it," Wilson said during a legislative briefing before 50 area business leaders in Tampa on Tuesday morning. "This is our time in the business community to do what we do best."

Wilson laid out what the Chamber wanted Scott and the legislature to make law.

• Spreading the risk on businesses that have to shore up the state's depleted unemployment insurance trust fund. Florida has been borrowing $300 million a month from the federal government to keep unemployment benefits flowing. One option the chamber floated: having employees pay a portion of the unemployment tax now paid by employers.

• Passing an education package that includes cutting back on teacher tenure, establishing teacher pay-for-performance, expanding access to virtual schools and creating education savings accounts.

• Tightening medical malpractice suits and venue-shopping for judges.

• Making Internet retailers responsible for collecting sales taxes on Florida transactions to capture an estimated $3 billion a year in lost state revenue.

• Pushing a property insurance system overhaul that was vetoed a year ago.

It is against federal law for states to tax internet businesses. That is good idea but dead on arrival. The rest of what the Chamber wants would screw over Floridians at the expense of the Commerce's self-interest. The proposal of taking unemployment taxes off of corporations and onto employees is horrible. This is nothing more than a tax shift.

What kind of education are students from internet classes and not being able to interact with teachers? Students would have less access and teachers wouldn't be able to keep a disengaged student from slacking off. Conservatives aren't suggesting that Harvard or MIT have only internet classes. Republicans want to kill public schooling and tort reform because teachers and trial lawyers have been longtime donors to the Democratic Party. This has been a longtime strategy by Grover Norquist.

"We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012," he says. "And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them."

The Chamber of Commerce's proposals aren't about reform. This is financial and political self-interest placed ahead of Floridians. That is why Wilson refused to be critical of Scott to the Times editorial board.

In a meeting with the Times' editorial board later in the day, Wilson was hard pressed to find fault with any of Gov. Rick Scott's early moves in office — including controversial parts of the governor's proposed $66 billion budget that call for cutting per-pupil spending by 10 percent and laying off about 6,700 state workers.

Though some state legislators were sharply critical of Scott's budget, Wilson predicted that "80 percent" of the proposal will pass.

The Florida Republican establishment and Chamber of Commerce is the marriage made in policy hell.

Trickle Down Economics Doesn't Spur Growth

"Sure. But first of all, it’s not clear that that would add trillions to the deficit, because I really believe that if we expand the base of the economy, which we could do by selectively lowering some taxes, you have a broader base on which to apply the tax."

Pat Toomey, Republican Senate candidate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also stated, "There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue." Toomey and McConnell are pushing the debunked trickle down economic theory. The reality is the Bush tax cuts created less revenue growth than the Reagan or Clinton administrations.



David Stockman was Ronald Reagan's former director of the Office of Management and Budget. In an interview, Stockman told journalist William Greider that trickle down economics was rebranded supply-side economics. It is hard to sell to the middle class and poor people that tax cuts for the rich will "trickle" down to them.

"It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."

In another interview, Stockman said Reagan intentionally used trickle down economics and increased spending as part of his plan to cut New Deal and Great Society programs he loathed.

Back in 1981 David Stockman was the wonderkid of the Reagan administration–the director of the Office of Management and Budget who’d craft in actual budgets the trickle-down miracle Reagan had promised on the campaign trail: lower budgets, lower spending, higher tax revenue. But trickle-down economics was a wish, not a reality. It’s never worked. Lower taxes don’t generate more revenue. They generate deficits.

Reagan knew it. So did Stockman. So did their guru, Friederich von Hayek. The deficits were intentional all along. They were edsigned to “starve the beast,” meaning intentionally cut revenue as a way of pressuring Congress to cut the New Deal programs Reagan wanted to demolish. “The plan,” Stockman told Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan at the time, ” was to have a strategic deficit that would give you an argument for cutting back the programs that weren’t desired. It got out of hand.”

Reagan mission was the same as Grover Norquist's drown government in a bathtub quote. Reagan and Norquist didn't really believe tax cuts would magically create surpluses. The new generation of Tea Party Republicans coming up learned economics from talk radio, Republican stump speeches and the National Review. The new breed of Republican candidates are so economically stupid that they actually believe the big lie that is trickle down economics. Toomey has a background in banking. Toomey isn't stupid about economic policy. He is just as cynical as Reagan and Norquist.

Crist's 'Broad Based' Nonsense

Gov. Charlie Crist is running for the U.S. Senate and needs to prove himself a fiscal conservative. Crist signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge. The group is run by the scandal-plagued Grover Norquist. Conservatives attacked Norquist for his association with the Islamist Fifth Column. Norquist came under F.B.I scrutiny for his ties with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Republican politicians don't have the good sense to avoid Norquist.

Crist signed Norquist anti-tax pledge. The problem is Crist raised taxes on cigareetes. Fees are technically not new taxes. Florida citizens will still feel the impact.

"It's broad based, if it's a majority," Crist said. "Clearly."


Here's what's clear: The state has about 15.6 million driver licenses and about 18.8 million motor vehicles. All of them will have to pay more.

Is that "broad based" enough?

Norquist's tax pledge is silly. Politicians should not paint themselves in a corner about promising never to raise taxes. Tax policy should be based on careful study and the current economic climate. It was pointless for Crist to sign the pledge. The Governor is terrified Norquist will whip up the base against him. Hardly a profile in courage.

Crist Caves to Norquist

The sway Grover Norquist has over Republicans is amazing. Norquist was at the center of the Jack Abramoff controversy. A Senate Indian Affairs Committee report found Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform was used to launder Indian tribe money for Abramoff.

"In addition, the Committee observed that a number of nonprofit organizations were used as instruments to channel money from one entity to another in an effort to obscure the source of funds, the eventual use of funds, and to evade tax liability on funds," the report continues. "Finally, the Committee also observed tax exempt organizations apparently serving as or being used as extensions of for-profit lobbying operations."

Norquist is known for incendiary remarks. Norquist actively seeks to bankrupt state and federal government.

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Norquist compared the estate tax to the holocaust on Fresh Air.

Grover Norquist: Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that -- you're right, there's an exemption for -- I don't know -- maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax.

I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.'

Normal people would run away from Norquist. Republicans pander to him. Case in point is Gov. Charlie Crist signing the Americans for Tax Reform pledge.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist today signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).

The Pledge commits signers to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses … and oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

Norquist actively lobbies for the defeat of any Republican candidate that doesn't sign the pledge or raises taxes. Republicans fear Norquist.

“I applaud him for his leadership and dedication to the taxpayers of Florida. I strongly encourage every candidate for federal and state elective office to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” Norquist continued.

I have no doubt Norquist encourages Republicans to sign his silly pledge. Norquist was a member of the College Republicans and helped Newt Gingrich take over the House. Signing the pledge does nothing for Democrats.

Quote of the Day

"The other tax cut you could do is cutting the corporate rate. The U.S. corporate rate is 35 percent; the European rate is 25 percent. Obama is a more international guy, so we should be close to the European average. We’ll stop torturing people, we’ll stop torturing corporations, and that will make us more like Europe."

Grover Norquist

Did America's most powerful Republican activist admit the United States torture?

Will Be Governor For Food Part 2

The Wall Street Journal shows states with surpluses in green and deficits in red. No data is available for the states in white. The majority of states will have trouble funding schools, law enforcement and infrastructure projects.

Minnesota Governor and 2012 presidential contender Tim Pawlenty went to the recent meeting Barack Obama had with governors. Pawlenty disparingly remarked on Obama's plan for a stimulus package.

Republican governors told Mr. Obama they had qualms about what they called indiscriminate federal spending. "Every dollar they send to us is money they don't have," Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said. "Meantime, that bill is being sent to our children and grandchildren."

When pressed by the media, Pawlenty and other Republican governors would not go on-the-record against taking federal stimiulus dollars. These Republicans have future political ambitions. They do not want to anger Grover Norquist by raising taxes.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to separate the sheep from the goats," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "The guys who turn around and say 'I can't rein in spending, I must raise taxes'...are going to have a hard time."

Norquist is a anti-tax radical with ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Norquist keeps an enemies list of Republicans that have strayed from his message. Norquist went after Florida congressman Vern Buchanan for voting for a tax increase. Norquist's influence is so strong that the Bush administration sent a representative to his weekly meetings.

Republican governors are screwed if their states go broke. Yet, they won't stand up to Norquist. The Governor with the biggest budget problems is Florida's Charlie Crist.

Among the states led by Republicans, Florida may have the biggest headache. Gov. Crist faces a $1.7 billion mid-fiscal-year shortfall, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Meanwhile, tax revenue in the state, which doesn't have an income tax, plunged 8.2% in the quarter ended in September from a year earlier as sales took a hit, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. Seeking to balance the budget, Gov. Crist has said he would consider a cigarette-tax increase of 50 cents a pack.

Rick Kriseman are pushing for a cigarette tax in the Florida House. Darryl Rouson is expanding the tax to cover tobacco-related products in smoke shops. Republican Sen. Dennis Jones supports a modest cigarette tax. Florida currently has the fifth lowest cigarette tax in the nation. A 50 cent tax increase would raise an estimated $400 million to $500 million in additional revenue.

Crist is faced with balancing the budget. His opponents will attack him on Florida's economic woes. If the tax is raised, Crist will have made an enemy out of Norquist. The latter will go to great pains to kill Crist's presidential ambitions.

Related : Will Be Governor For Food

More On Sarah Palin Rape Kit Controversy

Via Jill Filpovic: Irl Stambaugh was Sarah Palin's original police chief when she became Mayor of Wasilla City. Palin fired Stambaugh and the library director Mary Ellen Emmons because they did not support her policies. Emmons took issues with Palins inquires into censoring books. Stambergh later took Palin to court and lost.

Huffington Post reporter Jacob Alperin-Sheriff asked Stambaugh about billing victims for rape kits. The response was quite interesting.

It turns out that Wasilla did not bill sexual assault victims for the cost of rape exams while Irl Stambaugh was chief of police. As chief, he had included a line item in the budget to pay for the cost of such exams. He had only just heard about the Mayor Palin/Chief Fannon policy today, and was just as shocked to hear about it as I was.

Stambaugh is saying that the policy changed under Palin and Police Chief Charlie Fannon. The City of Wasilla web site records contain this pdf file.

The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective 8/14/2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

That says more about the city's crappy record keeping than about a now well-known policy. There was deep cut in Fannon's budget. Fannon publicly supported the victims' pay policy.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.

"Palin wasn’t the head of the Wasilla police department," Jill Filipovic wrote. "But in a town that tiny, it’s difficult to imagine that she didn’t know what was going on — especially when the issue was important enough for the state legislature to intervene. 'Shame' is certainly the appropriate word."

If Palin is to be taken at face value then she is to incompetent to manage her own police department. That is hardly the kind of experience John McCain wants to tout. The more likely answer is Republicans are so obsessed with tax cuts that sexually assaulted women don't equal into their equation. This is what happens when Republicans help Grover Norquist drown government in a bath tub. Norquist has been clear that no tax dollars should help the less fortunate.

"Because to do that, you would have to steal money from people who earned it and give it to people who didn't. And then you make the state into a thief."

That quote explains why trickle down economics is a sham and Palin and Fannon could becold-hearted enough to make victims pay twice.

Marco Rubio vs Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio was once the biggest fan of increasing sales taxes to offset the property taxcuts.

“It’s the fairest tax out there. Because you determine based upon how much you have,” Rubio said at a Wednesday news conference. “Sales tax, everyone decides how much they’re going to pay, based on what they decide to buy. If you buy a Bentley, you’re going to pay us more than if you buy an Audi. Or a — well, an Audi is pretty expensive right? A Hyundai. Or like the Prius. I guess that’s pretty expensive, too.”

Major conservative anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist and Florida Senator Mike Haridopolos have come out against the sales tax increase. Rubio now calls the sales tax increase "a potential recipe for disaster." It is fascinating how conservatives follow Norquist like sheep. Rubio is an economic illiterate and he will back down the moment one of the most powerful conservatives in America comes out against his plan. A true profile in courage.

When Grover Norquist barks Republicans jump. Mike Haridopolos unveiled a letter Norquist sent him against the property taxes decrease and sales tax increase. Norquist

"If this plan is passed along the legislature, any legislator who votes to place this measure on the ballot would be violating the Taxpayer Protection Pledge," Norquist’s letter continues.

Former Alabama Governor Bob Riley (R) attempted to raise taxes to pay for education. Norquist's organization the Americans for Tax Reform helped kill Riley's tax plan and placed the Governor on their enemies list. Norquist can rally conservative economic and Christian activists to kill a Republican politician's career.

Why Norquist is still taken seriously is a mystery. He campared the estate tax to the Holocaust. Norquist used pro-gambling Indian tribe money for a donation to the anti-gambling Alabama Christian Coalition. Norquist's friend Jack Abramoff told an Indian tribe to donate to the ATR. Norquist failed to inform the tribe or the Christian Coalition about the money exchange. All this was to help their longtime friend Ralph Reed.

Abramoff used ATR as a conduit in 1999 and 2000, for example, to send some $1.15 million from the Mississippi Choctaws to the Alabama Christian Coalition and to an allied anti-gambling group in the state. The funds were for a campaign spearheaded by Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader-turned-business-consultant, that helped to defeat a proposed gambling venture in Alabama that posed a financial threat to the Mississippi Choctaws' casino enterprises.

Abramoff, Norquist and Reed viewed Indian tribes as their personal ATM machine.

Some Abramoff e-mails released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee also indicate that Norquist took a cut of the Choctaw funds for ATR. In a February 7, 2000, e-mail, for instance, Abramoff cautioned Reed that he might be receiving a little less than expected because "I need to give Grover something (for helping), so the first transfer will be a little lighter." Then on February 22, Abramoff sent an e-mail memo to himself voicing surprise that "Grover kept another 25K!" Norquist told Time that he twice received permission from the Mississippi tribe to keep $25,000.

The fact that Haridopolos would seek out Norquist's approval is disturbing. Norquist backed Bush's disasterious first budget package. Norquist openly brags, "I think I've gotten more radical as I've gotten older."

I personally think the property tax/sale tax swap is a bad idea. It is amusing that conservatives are coming out against Marco Rubio's plan. Rubio is better at getting (bad) publicity than getting things done. In politics, that is all that matters.