Republicans Purge Their Own Over Taxes And Spending

The Republican Party's anti-tax litmus test is becoming much more rigid and localized. And in some cases it is leading to party efforts to purge elected officials.

This past month, the political world stood in amazement as longtime Republican Arlen Specter -- facing a heavy backlash from Pennsylvania Republicans -- switched his party affiliation and became a Democrat. The defection was attributed to a bout of ill-fitting philosophies and political opportunism on Specter's behalf. The senator, RNC Chairman Michael Steele declared, had voted himself out of the Republican Party.

Perhaps. But in California, the purging of Republican pols unwilling to take the party line on economic issues is becoming systemic. Under the national radar but making news in the state, recall efforts have been launched targeting several GOP officials for voting with their Democratic colleagues on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget. One of the members in the spotlight is Assemblyman Anthony Adams, whose alleged indiscretion was simple: the budget he supported called for a state-wide vote on raising income and sales taxes and car-registration fees. In other words, in the eyes of his fellow party members, he had voted for a tax increase.

Embraced by two prominent Orange County Republicans, a recall petition declares that Adams "broke his tax pledge" and "must go."

The wrath Adams has endured was also directed at three other California Republicans. Conservatives have also pledged to cut off the fundraising for two other elected GOP officials. Even Schwarzenegger himself -- who famously came to the governor's chair via a recall campaign -- has watched as a recall effort has been launched to replace him. The number of signatures needed to oust a governor, however, makes the likelihood of this happening far less. The process, nevertheless, has left operatives and insiders shaking their heads.

"What's happening with Republicans in California is the very definition of a circular firing squad," said Karen Hanretty, a Republican strategist who has done work in California. "They have a golden opportunity right now to capitalize on statewide voter anger expressed at the ballot box Tuesday, which summarily rejected tax increases and incompetent governance in Sacramento. But rather than recognize this opportunity and address voter frustration with a Democrat-controlled legislature, they're cannibalizing each other from within."

The aggressive anti-tax sentiments are not unique to the California GOP. Earlier this week Nassau County Executive and former New York gubernatorial candidate, Thomas Suozzi launched his reelection campaign for a third term. The tone he struck during his announcement led one Democratic operative to quip that it was decidedly tea-party-esque and "party-of-no."

"You know, I love the job of county executive. I had the opportunity to do what I've always dreamed of doing, to build things, to solve problems, try and help people," said Suozzi. "But there's still a major problem we face. It's property taxes. And this year's campaign is going to be about a property tax revolution."

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Comments

[AxelDC]

I just don't get Republican refusal to pay taxes. No one likes paying taxes, but then again, no one likes paying the bill at the end of a meal.

There are so many things that the private sector cannot offer that the public sector has to, like roads, libraries, schools, defense, regulations that protect our food, medicines, environment, etc. from poisoning us. It is obvious that these have to be paid for.

Republicans ran the country for many years and dramatically increased government spending. However, they refused to pay for these new services by simply issuing more and more debt.

Republicans are not the party of small government. Reagan and Bush expanded government as fast as FDR and LBJ. They just refuse to pay for it, making them the party of fiscal irresponsibility. Until they learn to act like grownups, Republicans should never be allowed near the levers of government again.

[bascombe]

bravo! the absolute truth in a nutshell !!!!!!!

[honestmann]

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization (Oliver Wendell Holmes). In other words, protection from unsafe toys, tainted food, police and fire protection, military preparedness, the incarceration of 2,000,000 people, medical research, support of the arts, disaster response, etc., etc, etc. I could go on, but you get the picture. Only those who are truly independently wealthy can afford to espouse the notion that government is the problem rather than the solution. However, even these individuals have a vested interest in many government functions (for example the Centers for Disease Control). No, the answer to all problems is not lower taxes. It about time we as a country matured to the point where more people understood there is no such thing as a free lunch and that government services are vital to the quality of life of most Americans.

[eposter]

I don't think anybody argues taxes per se. The debate is how much is enough. The answer from politicians is we're never taxed enough:

Income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, use taxes, so-called sin taxes, inheritance taxes, social security taxes, medicare taxes, and they want more taxes such as a new tax on health insurance if you got it.

There's always someone who wants to spend it and so much so the government is always in debt and borrowing the difference. Never enough for them spend spend spend spend spend

The people who receive the money no nothing about frugality - not educators, not government workers, not government contractors... the system is broken.

The problem is there are no limits to spending. 100 percent tax would not be enough for all the things politicians and their cronies want. The answer is not more and more taxes or less spending.

The answer is smart management of money but that is never talked about.

[AxelDC]

Any time you are running massive deficits, you are not paying enough taxes. The US needs to run many years of surplus budgets to begin paying off the enormous debts that these antitax, phony antigovernment types ran up.

The US is running massive deficits, therefore you either need to cut government services dramatically or start paying more in taxes. We are not going to magically "grow" our way out of this mess.

[LeftRight]

Considering the fact that we are both taxed less than our historic rates, and FAR less than the rest of the civilized world...... Couple that with the fact that our infrastructure (of various types including roads, social services, anything in the commons) is collapsing, I would say that we need to see more taxes, ESPECIALLY on the upper classes!

[eposter]

GOP cuts taxes for rich but never cuts spending for the super-rich. So why not vote Democrat and get a piece of the pie and tax the hill out of the super-rich that send jobs out of the USA.

[Cleanerman]

There is always a strong promotion to cut taxes, be it state or federal, but very little talk of cutting spending. If spending cuts are mentioned, it is never stated by hardly anyone where the cuts will happen. The rare times that there is a mention by someone of where to cut spending, the idea is nixed by everyone else. Believe me, people want more government than they are willing to admit. It is as I say over and over, Americans are dreamers who want their cake and eat it, too. Something for nothing.

[Gunwing]

And so the sword of fate falls agian.....­..........­..........

Dose this whole GOP debuckle remind any of the history buffs like me of other nations that had these kinds of problems? IE Britian, France, Germany, ROME? Greace? Maybe, I don't know the Wigs?

[wdw505]

good they should loose their positions for a broken promise.......well done

[Dbos]

Like a dead beat they never want to pick up the check .

[Khirad]

Republicans don't like to tax, just spend.

[Reighben Labilles]

To be more specific: Republicans don't like taxes that affect elites and they just want to spend on war.

[oddjob1138]

How exactly does a state government 'spend on war' exactly?

[AxelDC]

Republicans brand Democrats as "Tax and Spend Liberals", but that's a lot better than "Borrow and Spend Conservatives".

[LeftRight]

Yeah, a while back I got into it with a woman at the gas station, when she said that she didn't like tax and spend liberals, and I pointed that out, and asked her if she knew how much we were in debt..... When she said no, I told her that at that moment we were close to $10 trillion, and I asked her if she knew how much that was. When she again said no, I told her that 10 trillion seconds would take something on the order of 300,000 years.....

[labman57]

The less moderate members of the Republican Party subscribe to the Aryan philosophy of: "Power through Purification".

[jsgaetano]

And once again, the Goopers magically pretend they didn't Tax and Steal everything that wasn't nailed down for the past eight+ years.

[2008CaliforniaFan]

Some Democrats are speaking out and telling the truth.
Bob Poe (D) running for Governor of Alaska has come out and called Palin the ' N word'..." Narcissist" in the News.
Most people already knew this... but he's telling it like it is

Story about it on The Mudflats.
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/05/23/bob-poe-uses-the-n-word-no-not-that-one/

[larmar]

Republicans using paid bloggers in an attempt to control the national debate toward their point of view.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22861_Page2.html

Republicans are attempting to control the national debate by influencing direction on certain blogs. One of them being Huffington Post.

More of the same old Republican revisionist history, now recycled through paid bloggers.

[FairTalk]

Unlike the Democrats, who do it for fun?

[Khirad]

What's the old joke -- Republicans get paid well, but Dems get better benefits?!

[sparkandy]

Maybe Dems can do it for free because they live at home with their parents, who are Republicans and have to work for a living. Maybe Republicans have to pay for it because so many of them are busy amassing fortunes on the labor of others. They all stink.

[MikeDu]

The Repub ideologues seem to be willing to let the ship sink over dogma. I don't just mean the party but the whole country. Its like the designer of the Titanic refusing to patch the gaping holes in the ship's side because his creation had once been proclaimed 'unsinkable'. I doubt many of them even realize most of their 'sacred doctrines' were little more than scams designed to line corporate pockets at the expense of 'Joe the Plumber" suckers.

[meemu]

The GOP has a plan for health care in which they propose to TAX an employees' contribution from their employer--something like 12k dollars for the average, then give them a 5k+ tax 'rebate'..­.....which actually means they are raising TAXES on the average American.

The only taxes these people are against are taxes on the wealthy. I really wish those of you who still back this B.S. would open your minds and see what the repubs are REALLY doing to you.........

[jsgaetano]

If they had minds to open, they wouldn't be conservatives.

[Osusuki]

Somebody may have already mentioned this, but in California, when they have a special election to recall a member of either house of the Legislature, anyone who wants to declare as a replacement can put themselves on the ballot (given they collect the requisite number of signatures on filing petitions beforehand). So it's not inconceivable that these Republicans facing recall could all be replaced by Democrats. The Republicans could shoot themselves in the foot so badly that they actually lose their one remaining foothold on power by letting their numbers sink below the 33% required to obstruct good legislation. There may indeed be hope for California!