It’s Time To Point and Laugh

http://www.politicalgarbagechute.com/its-time-to-point-and-laugh/

It’s Time To Point and Laugh
November 27, 2012
by James Schlarmann

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Norquist, as any reader of this site knows, is a particular favorite target of mine. He’s an un-elected figure and yet for years and years he’s held arguably the most power in Congress. His pledge, in which he asks legislators to promise to never raise a single cent in taxes, has been signed by just about every single Republican in the legislative branch of our government. That pledge, and the threat behind it for Norquist to go on a crusade against any Republican who dared break it, has been one of the biggest culprits in creating the insane gridlock that haunts our congressional body now. The pledge immediately halts any and all negotiations before they start, essentially making it clear that the GOP is unwilling to budge on taxes, so why try?

All that is about to change, and Grover’s reign of error will be over.

It’s a mistake for any politician to sign any agreement with someone who ties their hands in terms of what they can do. The image that’s portrayed to independents and Democrats is one of stubborn stalwarts ignoring both the advice of economists and the voice of the American people when they’re told time and again that it’s time to increase taxes on the wealthiest people in this country, just as we did almost twenty years ago under President Clinton’s term. The right wing in this country is going to have to get over their obsession with the notion that progressives just want to tax our way out of the deficit issue, without using any other means to close the gaps in our budget. The truth of course is that progressives too understand the need to eliminate bloat and fraud in our government’s programs, in fact even more so for our cause. We’ll never win the argument over whether government is inherently good or bad if we can’t help shape the government into a model of efficiency and results.

Yes, progressives want to cut spending too. And as that message gets out, Norquist’s power diminishes. Grover’s grip also loosens the closer we get to that oft-mentioned fiscal cliff. The writing is on the wall as far as tax increases go. President Obama won re-election after making tax hikes on the wealthy a central issue of his campaign. His victory simply means more Americans agree with his proposals than disagrees, or at least those who agreed turned out to vote more, which in this country used to mean that the majority would get a more favorable deal in the negotiations on the issues. People like Grover Norquist have flipped the tables though, empowering the GOP to use his tax pledge and a water-down filibuster rule to kill any and all bills that raise even a single penny in revenue.

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There was one message sent to the GOP in re-electing President Obama. The majority of Americans don’t see raising taxes on the rich as a bad thing. It’s up to Republicans to either hear that message and react positively to it, or to continue to pledge allegiance not to the American people, but to Grover Norquist. The more that we see Republicans in Congress publicly remove themselves from under the thumb of the Norquist Pledge, the more confidence we can have that the GOP will return to form. This country needs a strong opposition to the Democratic party because effective governance comes from choosing the best of all ideas and ideologies. If the Republicans can either remove or marginalize the fundamentalists and obstructionists from their ranks, we may once again have a situation where the two parties disagree vehemently, but compromise wisely in order to move the country forward.

And forward is exactly where the American public voted to go on November 6th.