“Agog At His Magesty”: Grover Norquist Delivers The GOP’s Marching Orders
All hail Grover Norquist!
Bow down, Lindsey Graham. The Republican senator from South Carolina dared to say he might consider supporting a tax increase — but then Norquist paid him a visit on Wednesday. “Every once in a while you have somebody with an impure thought like Lindsey Graham,” Norquist told me. But after their talk, Norquist could report that “Graham will never vote for a tax increase.”
Kneel before him, Tom Coburn. The Republican senator from Oklahoma had toyed with the idea of supporting a deficit-reduction deal that includes some tax increases, before Norquist conquered him. “He had a moment of weakness where he thought you had to raise taxes to get spending restraint,” Norquist said. “He now knows that’s not true.”
Prostrate yourselves, House Republicans. On Thursday, a day after Republican senators hosted Norquist on their side of the Capitol, GOP House members opened up the Ways and Means Committee room so that he could counsel them on The Pledge, an anti-tax edict written by Norquist and signed by all but four House Republicans, most Republican senators and Mitt Romney.
Lawmakers leaving their private audience with Norquist were agog at his majesty. “I agree with him tremendously,” reported Rep. John Fleming (R-La.).
But Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on Ways and Means, had a less favorable view of the spectacle as he stood in the hallway while Republicans in the committee room kissed Norquist’s ring.
“They’re in this committee room to hold royal court for the person who has asked people to take a pledge . . . not their constituents,” Levin complained. “Essentially, Norquist is here to hold feet to the fire when we need open minds.”
Norquist doesn’t dispute that. The tax-pledge effort he began a quarter-century ago is now the defining mantra of the party: no tax increases, no how, no way, no matter the consequences. With the possible exception of Newt Gingrich, Norquist has done more than anybody to bring about Washington’s political dysfunction.
Since he began, the federal debt has increased roughly eightfold. But Norquist still believes that as soon as next year victory will be his — all because of his pledge.
“Because almost all the Republicans took it, it became, actually, the branding of the party,” Norquist told me Thursday.
Although I think Norquist’s approach has been disastrous for the country, I am awed by his success with the pledge. Now Senate Democrats are trying to turn him into the GOP bogeyman of this election cycle.
“The leader of the Republican Party is up here today on the Hill. . . . You know who it is: It’s Grover Norquist,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference Thursday, a couple of days after charging, with some validity, that Norquist “has the entire Republican Party in the palm of his hand.”
Norquist didn’t quarrel with the charge, as Fox News’s Chad Pergram put it to him, that he’s giving Republicans “their marching orders.”
“The modern Republican Party works with the taxpayer movement,” he replied, satisfied that “post-pledge, post-tea party, they’re not going to raise taxes.”
That’s probably because Norquist has convinced them that the long-sought victory is just months away. He predicts that Republicans will keep control of the House, take over the Senate, elect Romney president and promptly enact the Ryan budget. “It would be nice if some Democrats join, but it’s not necessary,” he said, arguing that the plan crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) could clear the Senate with only 50 votes as part of the budget “reconciliation” process.
This seems unlikely. Even if they could use the procedure Norquist favors (anti-deficit rules make this difficult) Republicans would have to make their plan temporary, like the George W. Bush tax cuts. And the backlash is likely to make the Obamacare rebellion look tame. We’d quickly be back in the stalemate.
But Norquist’s loyalists in Congress are holding their ranks, dutifully coordinating talking points with him after their private tutorial Thursday on “how the pledge should be communicated.”
“We have a spending problem, and the taxpayer pledge helps us focus on the problem,” House conservative leader Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters as he departed.
“The problem in Washington is spending,” echoed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Finally, out came the 55-year-old Norquist, all of 5-foot-6 with a graying beard. He spoke expansively to reporters for more than half an hour, waving off the notion that he might be becoming a PR problem for the party.
“There are significantly more Republicans in Congress since they started taking the pledge,” he said. “The advocates of spending more and taxing more are losing.”
Losing? Or just locked in an unending blood feud?
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 22, 2012
“Quiet Room Magical Thinking”: Mitt Romney Pretends Congress Doesn’t Exist
Mitt Romney went before a group of Latino public officials today to offer some remarks on immigration. Calling it a “plan” would be too generous, although there were a couple of details, some of them perfectly reasonable, like giving green cards to people who get an advanced degree at an American university. But the part everyone has been waiting for—his reaction to President Obama’s recently-announced mini-DREAM Act—was pretty disappointing, because it engaged in a kind of magical thinking that has become increasingly untenable:
Some people have asked if I will let stand the President’s executive action. The answer is that I will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the President’s temporary measure. As President, I won’t settle for a stop-gap measure. I will work with Republicans and Democrats to find a long-term solution.
I will prioritize measures that strengthen legal immigration and make it easier. And I will address the problem of illegal immigration in a civil but resolute manner. We may not always agree, but when I make a promise to you, I will keep it.
It’s certainly nice to know he’ll be “resolute,” but you may have noticed that getting a major immigration reform through Congress is kind of a difficult thing to do. George W. Bush and Barack Obama both tried to do it and failed. So how is Mitt going to accomplish this feat? He will “put in place my own long-term solution.” Now why didn’t anyone think of that before?
This isn’t something new, of course—most challengers act as though through the overwhelming force of their personality, they’ll sweep away all opposition, bring both parties together, and get things done. The messy details are left for when you’re actually in office. Obama certainly talked that way four years ago. But after all we’ve been through in the last few years, isn’t it incumbent upon a presidential candidate to at least not pretend that enacting large, sweeping legislation that requires bipartisan cooperation on an intensely controversial issue is going to be a piece of cake?
Last weekend, Bob Schieffer asked Romney what he would do about the Obama policy while he was getting his awesome new policy in place, and Romney dodged the question. But no one who knows anything about Congress believes it’ll be anything but enormously difficult.
And it’ll be particularly difficult for Mitt Romney. It isn’t a matter of the complexity of the issue, as it was with health care reform where there were hundreds of small and large details to be worked out. In this case, it’s about the fragile coalition that would have to be assembled to pass immigration reform. I spoke today to a staffer for one of the most influential members of the House on the immigration issue, and he pointed out that there have been comprehensive immigration bills sitting around for ten years. The problem, he said, is the House Republicans. As long as they’re in control, no immigration bill that grants any undocumented immigrant anything other than a swift kick in the pants has any hope of passing. If a President Romney was to pass immigration reform, he’d have to do it with overwhelming support from Democrats and enough moderate Republicans peeled off to get to 218 votes.
But this is Mitt Romney we’re talking about. The guy who is going to have to spend his entire first term convincing conservatives he’s still one of them, lest he face a primary challenge from the right. What do you think are the chances he’d take on a high-profile fight with his party’s right wing, with the odds stacked against him?
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, June 21, 2012
“With Eyes Wide Shut”: Right Wing Spins The Media With “Job-Killer” Claims
The media is indiscriminately using the term “job-killer” to describe government policies and programs, but without verifying or substantiating the claims, according to a new study. Use of the phrase by major media outlets has exploded since President Obama took office and rapidly circulates throughout the press with little or no fact checking of the “job killer” allegations.
“Job-Killing” Rhetoric From the Right
“The news media, by failing to seek to verify allegations made about government policies and proposals, typically act more like a transmission belt for business, Republican, and conservative sources than an objective seeker of truth when it comes to the term ‘job killer,'” its authors found.
The independent study, Job Killers in the News: Allegations without Verification, conducted by Prof. Peter Dreier of Occidental College and Christopher R. Martin of the University of Northern Iowa, reviewed the use of the term “job-killer” in stories from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Associated Press going back to 1984.
The vast majority of the “job-killer” allegations were directed at federal or state government policies to regulate business (particularly policies towards the environment, taxes, health care, and raising the minimum wage). Most of the sources for the “job-killer” charges came from business spokespersons and Republican Party officials, but in around 17 percent of the articles and editorials, news outlets used the phrase without citing a source. In 91.6 percent of the stories about “job killing” government policies, the media failed to cite any evidence or quote an authoritative source to corroborate the claim.
“With little or no fact checking of ‘job killer’ allegations, Americans have no way to know if there is any evidence for these claims or whether they are simply a cynical political ploy used to discredit opponents’ policy ideas,” Dreier and Martin noted.
Indeed, according to the authors, “There is no correlation between the frequency of the phrase ‘job killer’ and unemployment rate. Instead, ‘job killer’ allegations correspond much more closely with political cycles,” particularly during election season and under Democratic administrations.
“Job-killer” allegations were barely used under the Clinton administration and virtually disappeared during the eight years George W. Bush was president — despite job growth under Clinton and job loss under Bush — and skyrocketed once Barack Obama became president. The number of news stories alleging that a particular government policy would be a “job killer” increased 1,156% between the first three years of the George W. Bush administration and the first three years of the Obama administration.
“The cavalier nature in which the ‘job killer’ allegations are reported suggests that term is used loosely by those who oppose government regulations, and they can get away with it because news organizations fail to ask—or at least report – whether they have any evidence for the claims they make,” the study’s authors wrote.
The Wall Street Journal was the most likely news organization to use the phrase with no attribution.
By: Emily Osborne, Center For Media and Democracy, June 22, 2012
“Two Koch’s And A Smile”: Weekend Of Secrecy For Mitt Romney And Big GOP Donors
It’s going to be a big weekend in the world of big conservative money: Both Mitt Romney and billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch are holding hush-hush events with wealthy donors designed to keep the dollars coming in.
Romney’s three-day retreat, which is being held at the Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, is an opportunity for about 700 Romney’s biggest fundraisers to get some face time with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. (Many of them are “bundlers” – wealthy and well-connected individuals who call on their family, friends and associates to max out their contributions to Romney and the GOP – who have raised in the area of $250,000 for Romney.) Some of the biggest names in the Republican Party, and many of the top contenders to be Romney’s running mate, are also coming to Park City: CBS News has confirmed that attendees will include former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Republican strategist Karl Rove, former Reagan chief of staff James Baker, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.
Republican strategist Mary Matalin, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt are among the other big names expected to attend. The Romney campaign would not discuss who is attending the retreat, which is not open to the press. Spokespersons for two top contenders for the vice presidential slot – Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – told CBS News the politicians were invited but would not attend for scheduling reasons. CBS News has also confirmed that Olympic champion figure skater Dorothy Hamill, who participated in the Romney-run 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, will attend.
Romney was not expected to compete in terms of fundraising with President Obama, who broke records in raising nearly $750 million in the 2008 cycle. But he has largely kept pace thanks in part to his personal engagement with wealthy donors, which has come in the form of dozens of intimate meetings around the country and, as the New York Times notes, invitations to his summer home at New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. The Romney campaign, which has garnered a reputation for aggressive and prompt engagement with potential donors, outraised the Obama campaign $78.6 million to $60 million in May.
While Romney and his Republican allies are busy cultivating donors in Utah, the Koch brothers will be in San Diego holding a convention designed to help them generate hundreds of millions of dollars to advance conservative causes. At least we think they will: The event is shrouded in secrecy, and neither representatives for Koch Industries nor a number of expected attendees contacted by CBS News would even confirm that it is taking place.
Word got out last week that it was indeed happening, when Minnesota television station owner Stanley Hubbard confirmed its existence – and San Diego location – to Politico. In an apparent attempt to head off protesters and potential infiltrators, organizers and attendees will not say exactly where the convention will be held; a San Diego alternative newspaper is holding a “Find the Koch Brothers Confab” contest in order to figure it out. (CBS News’ attempts to confirm the venue have thus far been fruitless, though we have our suspicions.) Liberals have their own version of the Koch brothers’ confab called The Democracy Alliance, where security is similarly strict; both events are awash in security personnel looking to escort uninvited guests (such as reporters) off the premises.
Organizations tied to the Koch brothers are reportedly planning to spend nearly $400 million on the 2012 campaign cycle, and their conferences are largely designed to garner contributions to the cause. Last year, Mother Jones infiltrated a Koch conference in Vail where Christie was a speaker and recorded Charles Koch thanking donors who had given more than $1 million; the list, which is here, includes more than thirty names. According to a leaked invitation, Koch conferences have attracted conservative heavy hitters such as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Govs. Jindal and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rep. Ryan, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
The semi-secrecy of the Romney retreat and extreme secrecy of the Koch conference mirror the secrecy that currently exists in the world of campaign financing. The Romney campaign, unlike the Obama campaign, refuses to disclose its bundlers, which makes it more difficult for the public to assess what his biggest donors might expect in exchange for their money. The Koch brothers funnel money into groups like Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit “social welfare organization” that does not need to disclose its donors because it is incorporated as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service. (More on that here.) And while the super PACs that the Supreme Court freed up to spend unlimited amounts to influence the election do have to disclose their donors, they can simply funnel donations through 501(c)(4) groups – which in many cases are their sister organizations – effectively allowing the super PACs to get around that pesky disclosure requirement. (There is also anonymity on the other side of the spectrum: The Federal Election Commission does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 in an election cycle.)
In this election cycle, the Republicans appear to have a significant advantage when it comes to outside group spending – though because 501(c)(4)s and related organizations only have to file with the IRS once per year, it’s impossible to know exactly how much money is flowing into the system. The Obama campaign, which says it expects to be outspent overall, estimated Wednesday that Romney, the Republican National Committee and the outside groups will spend $1.225 billion on ads alone before November.
Meanwhile, Romney and Mr. Obama continue to spend much of their time traveling the country to attend fundraisers, many of them closed to the press. CBS News’ Mark Knoller reported earlier this month that the president has participated in 160 fundraisers since filing for re-election last April, and he has a number scheduled for next week; Romney, whose campaign frequently holds fundraisers it doesn’t let the media know about, plans to follow his weekend retreat with his big donors in Utah by heading to Phoenix, Arizona for another fundraiser on Monday.
By: Brian Montopoli, Senior Political Writer, CBSNews Political Hotsheet, June 22, 2012
“Bobbing And Weaving”: GOP Caught Flat-Footed On Immigration
Republicans are bobbing, ducking and weaving around President Barack Obama’s move to allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to stay in the country, fearing a lose-lose proposition no matter how they weigh in on the policy shift.
While most Republicans criticized Obama for circumventing Congress, they are far more circumspect about the plan’s merits or their preferred method of dealing with the 800,000 young illegals who will be affected by the order.
The GOP fear boils down to this: If it backs the plan, it would infuriate the right flank of the party, which considers the policy nothing short of “amnesty” for lawbreakers. But if Republicans attack it, it could turn off scores of Latino voters who are poised to play a huge role in crucial battleground states this November.
So the Republican response? Say very little.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the GOP would follow the direction of Mitt Romney, who in turn has called on Congress to deal with the matter without laying out specifics himself. Arizona Sen. John McCain said Republicans are ready to embrace a proposal under development by Sen. Marco Rubio, but the Florida freshman now plans to shelve the proposal until after the election.
And there’s been virtual silence on the Senate floor from Republicans who have shied away from talking about the matter publicly.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn — the ranking member on a key immigration subcommittee and head of the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee — was asked if the GOP needed its own policy proposal on the matter this election year.
“We were working on that, and the president basically undercut it by trying to do this unilaterally, something he said a year ago he couldn’t do,” Cornyn told POLITICO. “This isn’t going to get implemented in the next 140 days before the election.
“The most important thing we can do is to get America back to work.”
Republicans are in virtual agreement on that. The election, they believe, will turn on Obama’s stewardship of the economy, something they think will resonate with Latinos also frustrated with the president’s failure to deliver on comprehensive immigration reform.
But there’s far less unanimity among Republicans on how to deal with the emotional issue of children of illegals brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday after a party lunch, McConnell refused several times to weigh in on the substance of the change, instead deferring to the party’s presumptive presidential nominee to address it at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials convention Thursday in Orlando, Fla.
“I think most of my members are interested in learning what Gov. Romney has to say about this issue, and we’re going to withhold judgment — most of us — until that time,” McConnell said.
Romney — who along with Obama will speak at the three-day convention — repeatedly declined to answer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday whether he as president would make the same policy change as Obama did. Instead, Romney criticized the process by which Obama enacted the move.
McConnell declined to answer what should happen to young children and adults who are in the country illegally and would qualify under the new policy. He also deflected questions about whether the new policy constitutes “amnesty,” as immigration hard-liners charge.
“If it leads to citizenship as a reward for some kind of illegal entry, that could be argued,” McConnell said on amnesty. “But I think we’re going to wait and see what Gov. Romney has to say and then our members are going to be discussing his views on this and I think many of them will have similar views, others may not.”
But like other top GOP officials, the Kentucky Republican criticized Obama over his process.
“What I can say for sure is, the president said a year ago he didn’t believe he had the authority to do what he announces he was going to do last week. And I don’t think that’s an irrelevant thing to discuss,” McConnell said. “I mean, did he have the authority to do what he did?”
Twenty Republican senators, including McConnell, released a letter sent to Obama Tuesday demanding a detailed response from the White House on its authority to issue such a broad move. But the missive stopped short of picking apart the policy itself.
In the House, Speaker John Boehner said the immigration move puts “everyone in a difficult position” and accused the president of trying to shift the debate away from his stewardship of the economy.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune , No. 3 in the Senate GOP leadership, called Obama’s move “politically motivated” but acknowledged that “he’ll probably stand to benefit politically from doing that.”
Asked about the GOP approach, Thune said he preferred a broader solution, something he believed Romney was in the “process of formulating.” Like other Republicans, Thune said the president undermined the Rubio effort.
Rubio announced Monday he would likely punt the matter until after the election, since the president’s move sapped the legislative momentum out of his push — a decision that appears to have caught many Republicans flat-footed.
McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee, said Republicans should talk about the matter “as an issue of compassion and concern.”
Asked if the GOP needed a legislative proposal to show voters, McCain said: “Well, Marco Rubio had one that obviously was nearing completion.”
Informed that Rubio appeared likely to drop the effort now, McCain said: “Well, I don’t know what his decision is — but I know he’s close to completing one.”
There were many similarities between Obama’s and Rubio’s plans.
Rubio’s plan would have legalized undocumented children brought to the United States at an early age provided they have no criminal record and have completed high school. It would grant them “non-immigrant” visas and allow them to stay in the country and access the existing immigration system, through which they could eventually become green card holders or naturalized citizens.
Similarly, Obama’s executive action said that those who entered the United States before the age of 16, are younger than 30 and pose no security threat, served in the military and completed minimum levels of education can get a two-year deferral from deportation and apply for work permits.
The Democrats’ DREAM Act — which Obama supports and Romney promised to veto during the primary campaign — would provide a direct pathway to citizenship by providing green cards to children seeking higher education or military service of at least two years.
At least one Republican praised Obama’s decision: Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), whose support for the DREAM Act became a political liability in his losing primary bid.
“The executive action is controversial,” Lugar said, “but nevertheless, on balance, it seems to me that it was a constructive move.”
By: Seung Min Kim and Manu Raju, Politico, June 19, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 