Grover Norquist is everywhere. In recent weeks, the head honcho at Americans for Tax Reform has been profiled, lauded, or excoriated by a slew of media outlets. I was interviewed earlier this week for a piece on NPR, and a quick search turns up recent items at CNN, The Week, the Washington Post, and the New York Review of Books, among others. The guy is really on a tear.
During the NPR interview, I was asked if I could think of a left-leaning counterpart to Norquist. I was stumped. A bunch of people came to mind, notably Bob McIntyre at Citizens for Tax Justice and Bob Greenstein at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. But neither seemed to fit the bill very well. Sure, McIntyre and Greenstein have been important and highly influential voices for progressive tax policy. But neither has reshaped political debate in Norquistian fashion.
Norquist's unparalleled influence stems from his role as enforcer. Armed with his (in)famous anti-tax pledge, he's the undisputed master of political arm-twisting. No one on the left plays that sort of role. And I doubt anyone ever could -- Democrats are just too damn undisciplined (read: tolerant of ideological diversity, for better or worse).
Also, McIntyre and Greenstein are entirely too knowledgeable when it comes to tax policy to ever be compared to Norquist. It's never struck me that Grover cares very much about tax policy, per se. He only cares about taxes on the macro level, since he uses them as a proxy for the size of government. (Which is a crass oversimplification and hopeless distortion, since low taxes and high spending make for a very big sort of government).
Norquist revels in his passion for oversimplification. Most political issues are complicated, he told NPR, with many lots of facets and nuances. By contrast, he said, "The tax issue, size of government, has one. Up or down, yes or no. It's binary."
Despite the risk of comparing apples and oranges, I still think it's valuable to ponder who might be the left's anti-Grover. So here's my challenge to readers: send me your nominations for a progressive counterpart (use the comments below or tweet it to me @jthorndike) and in a future piece, I'll survey the field. Who knows, maybe we can find someone who fits the bill.
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Let everyone of them in Congress strive to abide by the Constitution and vote their conscience, using common sense. That should be enough.
check out norquist's website ...you can customise letters to sentors...thats nice of him.
let's show him how to customise letters to senators.
http://www.atr.org/tell-all-gop-senators-leave-gang-a6213
Democracy isn't a gimmicky formula. It's a dialog between real people that have deep differences over goals and priorities. Binding politicians with unbreakable pledges robs their constituents of effective representation. Send a piece of paper to Washington and save the salary. The tax pledge clones 200 Grover Norquists and seats them in the House of Representatives. Such rigidity has led us to a flirtation with economic apocalypse.
As a party that tries to deify the Founding Fathers, Republicans defy the true democratic spirit of the FF's. Government officials swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Period. That is hard enough. Signing extra-mural pledges goes beyond pandering; it violates the oath of office. Let's propose an old fashioned 1960's demonstration where the politicians set fire to their pledges and renew their vows to serve their constituents--including those with whom they deeply disagree. Power to the people! Grover go home!”
With a post like yours, I'm guessing we might have another vote for Geithner ... or, perhaps, that's just wishful thinking ...
In 1981 it seems that we took social justice out back and shot it, as the individuals who stood for social justice were shot in reality. Our country is dominated by a noisy minority of reactionary zealots. We have numerous voices of sanity on the left, but the media isn't into sane, rational, nuanced discourse. I'm ok with Geithner.or Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson, Russ Feingold, Ralph Nader, and many, many more. It's not about a personality cult. The Republicans are lazy and unimaginative. They want a formula that answers their needs even if it means violating their pledge to suport the US Constitution.
They were voted in, in 2006 to change foreign policy. 5 years later they are still implementing Bush's policies in this area, and will for the foreseeable future.
The Democrats do not stand for anything. That is partly why our country has been so bad. People are mad at the Tea Party for being stubborn on an issue. But that is what the people wanted from the Democrats on foreign policy, but never received it. Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Kerry are all in with the Bush Doctrine.
Secretary Geithner has been the strongest advocate in the Obama/Biden administration for a responsible and prudent pro-growth tax and fiscal policy. And, just as importantly, he has never missed an opportunity to essentially call out the nonsense emanating from the Republican cult of economic failure.
Has he been everywhere or profiled, lauded, and excoriated in media outlets to the extent that Norquist has? Of course, not. He's just been excoriated - from all sides, no less. But, he is, arguably, the antithesis of what Norquist represents, any way you slice it.
Ironically, Geithner draws the most virulent wrath from progressives and from the rest of the left half of the political spectrum, despite his progressive thinking on tax policy and reform - particularly his forceful public stance and cogent arguments last year on allowing the Bush/Cheney era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire while extending the middle class tax cuts until the economy more fully recovers, not to mention his views on the estate tax.
Unfortunately, few were listening and taking notice of his efforts, much less applauding them. Perhaps, as a result of your future piece, that may begin to change ...
I'll never forget his appearance before a House congressional committee and one member of congress prefaced his question to the secretary by referring to him as a former banker. When Geithner said he was never a banker, the member went on to correct himself by referring to Geithner as a former investment banker. Geithner corrected him once again and informed the member that he has spent his entire career in public service. Well, in any event, the member continued ... and then moved on, shielded from any semblance of personal embarrassment by his blissful ignorance.
It was mildly amusing.
If you ask me, it is the height of irony that Geithner is blamed for any of the compromises this administration has had to make on economic policy. If the so-called progressives and the rest of the left had been supporting what Geithner was advocating vis-a-vis tax policy and financial regulatory reform instead of calling for his resignation, or worse, every five minutes, then the tax deal at the end of 2010 and the fin reg reform package would have been even stronger than what eventually passed. But, that fact is lost on the lot of them, not surprisingly.
A recent editorial by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) in USA TODAY titled Opposing view: Just say no to higher taxes
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-07-04-opposing-view-debt-limit-taxes_n.htm
speaks volumes regarding the Obama administration’s misjudgment with the Fiscal Commission. Demands for the Commission arose from the 2008 book/movie I.O.U.S.A. highlighted: the Leadership, trade, savings and budget deficits; the first three being the most middle class relevant and root causes of the budget deficit, the tip of the iceberg. The ATR’s pledge signers (not permitted to negotiate in good faith) limit the focus only to spending, throwing middle class relevant deficits under the bus and allow ATR to be the Puppet Master of a deficit shell game.
But, seriously, folks: What would it take to be a liberal Grover Norquist? Single issue. Simplistic message. And a deliverable threat to primary the unpure. Doesn't exist.
The reason for that is the reason why we're not Republicans in the first place. Because we understand nuance, we embrace pluralism, we eschew absolutism.
What kind of fortune cookie pledge could we possibly come up with that we wouldn't be laughed out of a Congressman's office?
But that doesn't mean a NotGrover doesn't (or couldn't) exist. Just that s/he would be different than Grover. Such a person might still be an effective counter to Norquist, at least on the substance of tax policy.
Along these lines, a few people have suggested people (and think tanks) that try to counter Norquist with substantive ideas and arguments.
I have been giving this a lot of thought along my previous lines, however, and I may have come up with a progressive example of ideological purity trumping common sense. There was a group of women who were catastrophically devastated that 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling were not enough to elect the first woman President. These "pumas" have since set up several shops: PACS and the like. One of them even blogs here, although for the life of me I can't recall her name.
Anyway, they have been touting female candidates of the WORST ilk in 2010 and as part of the run-up to 2012, regardless of party, platform or progressiveness, preferring pudenda.
I think their genesis found flower with a raspy-voiced patron saint who was kicked out of the DNC rules committee meeting in 2008 over FL and MI primary delegates. Her rant included the infamous phrase "inadequate black male" and is easily found online by searching that term.
In spirit, if not in subject matter, they are the left's Norquist.
We need the tax equivalent of Elizabeth Warren to advocate for the revenue that is the basis of American values: public education, infrastructure, a social safety net, and university research to spur innovation.
That's not "big government". It's doing all the things private companies don't want to touch because there's no money in it.