In an interview with Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, host David Gregory dismissed concerns that raising taxes could harm the economy: "But the notion that tax cuts or tax increases somehow impact economic growth, we know historically that's simply not the case....Isn't that one of the falsehoods that's peddled in Washington?" [Audio available here]
Gregory cited supposed evidence for his argument: "President Clinton raised taxes during boom times. President Bush lowered taxes did not spur great job creation." In reality, over 8 million jobs were created in the wake of the Bush tax cuts. And about Clinton's tax hikes, Norquist pointed out to Gregory: "If you take a look at when you cut marginal tax rates, the strong growth in the last six years of the '90s started the day the Republicans captured the House and Senate. Didn't happen in the first two years, certainly didn't happen with the tax increase..." [View video after the jump]
Grover Norquist
Bored with the Penn State scandal because it didn't implicate any prominent Republicans, the mainstream media have suddenly become obsessed with Grover Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge." They are monomaniacally fixated on luring Republicans into raising taxes.
If Democrats could balance the budget tomorrow and quadruple government spending, they'd refuse the deal unless they could also make Republicans break their tax pledge. That is their single-minded goal.
CBS's Erica Hill urged "conservative activist" Grover Norquist to influence the members of Congress who have signed his no tax hikes pledge to consider raising taxes during an interview on Monday's Early Show: "There's still not a lot getting done in Washington, even with some of the compromise. So why not push those people to maybe do a little bit more?"
Hill pressed the idea of compromise from the very start of her interview of Norquist. She first asked the Americans for Tax Reform leader, "As we look at Congress and the way the approval rating has continued to plummet...for a lot of people, this is a failure, the fact the super committee cannot come to some sort of agreement on what to cut here. To you, though, is it a success, in that your side, technically, that you're backing, or either side, didn't give in?"
CNN's Carol Costello borrowed from the Democrats on Monday's American Morning and demanded that conservative Grover Norquist explain why he wasn't "exactly what a lot of voters hate" about America's political system.
From the start of her interview with Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Costello bludgeoned him with Democratic talking points. Democrats had attacked Norquist and his "taxpayer protection pledge," in which political signers promise not to vote to raise taxes, for holding up the negotiations on the super committee and causing its failure.
Serious question: who do you think the liberal media loathes more: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Grover Norquist? I'm going with 'b.' After all, Mahmoud merely wants to build an atom bomb and wipe Israel off the map, for starters. But Grover Norquist wants to keep taxes from increasing and thereby limit the growth of government.
In a 60 Minutes hit piece tonight, CBS correspondent Steve Kroft claimed Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, "likes things ugly." For good measure, Kroft claimed that Norquist's strategy has some of the characteristics of a "protection racket." Video after the jump.
The arrogance of Bill Maher, as well as his ability to revise history, knows no bounds.
On MSNBC's "The Last Word" Tuesday, the "Real Time" host told Lawrence O'Donnell the reason he invited conservatives like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Grover Norquist on his hit show "Politically Incorrect" years ago was to act as his "foils" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
On his Saturday show Your Money, CNN host Ali Velshi tried to pin the blame for the debt ceiling standoff on one man – the president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist. "Are you the reason that we don't have a debt ceiling increase right now?" he boldly asked his guest.
Velshi was referring to Norquist's pledge that entails elected officials who sign it promising to oppose increases in taxes. Velshi termed the pledge one of "remarkable inflexibility." He questioned outright the viability of the pledge. "Why is preserving the inability to increase taxes more important than the overall health of the economy and the danger that it's putting us into right now?" he asked.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz mocked Grover Norquist's vigilance (or rigidity) against tax increases as "almost religious" in its intensity, his no-new-taxes pledge a "sacred text." So when the sandal is on the other foot, and a leftist shows great vigilance (or rigidity) against any reduction in the growth of Medicare and Social Security, is that "almost religious"? Not to reporter Ben Pershing in his Friday article on ultraliberal Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland. The headline was "Edwards emerging as liberals' voice." Pershing portrayed Edwards as polite, but firm in her refusal to allow entitlement programs to be on the bargaining table. He began:
Rep. Donna F. Edwards had a clear message for the small group of constituents who gathered Saturday at an auto-glass store in Lanham: “Protecting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are incredibly important, more now than ever before.”
On Thursday’s All Things Considered, NPR profiled conservative activist Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform. Michele Norris began: “In the debate over the debt ceiling, one person who has outsized influence is not actually at the negotiating table.” That might sound good to Norquist’s donors, but when liberal reporters accuse someone of “outsized influence,” it means “too much power for the good of the country.”
Reporter Ari Shapiro signaled hostility by strangely noting that Norquist’s “donor list is not public,” when that is true for almost every tax-exempt political group in Washington (not to mention NPR!):
If you thought of a place on the radio dial on a Saturday morning where Sen. Tom Coburn would be pressed as squishy, it probably wouldn't be NPR. But on Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR anchor Scott Simon asked some basic questions about a budget deal, and then shifted to Grover Norquist's criticisms of Coburn for being a tax hiker. This could be seen as quite an anti-Grover segment, with how strongly Coburn attacked him:
SCOTT SIMON: Let me ask you about a debate that was brought to my attention this week. You're -- Oklahoma, I think can fairly be identified as a farming state. You're opposed to ethanol subsidies.
TOM COBURN: Well, I'm specifically opposed to the ethanol blending credit, which is just one of the subsidies that we give for ethanol.
SIMON: This has opened up, as I don't have to tell you, a pointed disagreement with Grover Norquist and his group, Americans for Tax Reform.
CNN, both on-air and on its website, highlighted how Democratic leaders and President Obama spoke more than twice as long as Republican leaders at Thursday's health care summit. CNN.com's Political Ticker on Thursday noted how Republicans "spoke for just 111 minutes, about 30 percent of the total speaking time." The statistic was also cited on Campbell Brown on Thursday and American Morning on Friday.The network's Jeff Simon and Charles Riley put up a six-paragraph article on the lopsided figures on CNN.com at 7:12 pm Eastern time: "A CNN analysis of the meeting shows that Democrats - including President Obama, who helmed the meeting - were granted more than twice the amount of speaking time as Republicans. Democrats spoke for a total of 135 minutes while President Obama spoke for 122 minutes, for a total of 257 minutes. Republicans, meanwhile, spoke for just 111 minutes, about 30 percent of the total speaking time."
Since the announcement of his resignation from the Senate the common label (from CNN to MSNBC) of Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh seems to be that of a "centrist." On Monday's Hardball both Chris Matthews and his guest panelist NBC News' Chuck Todd called Bayh a "centrist," which is an inaccurate label for someone who, as NB's Matthew Balan pointed out, has a lifetime ACU rating of 20 and ADA of 70.
During the 5pm Olympics-shortened edition of Hardball, Matthews and Todd spinned that Bayh is leaving the Senate because "there's no room for centrists." [audio available here]
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Okay let's talk turkey here. Let's go to Chuck Todd on the big picture here. Just a year or so ago, Arlen Specter of my state quit the Republican Party saying, there's no room in it for centrist politicians like himself. Is this a sign that there's no room in the Democratic Party for centrist politicians like Evan Bayh? He seemed to be saying that today.