Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is being mocked by oh-so-funny lefty pundit Matthew Dowd because Dowd dislikes the anti-higher-tax-rate pledge Norquist invites politicians to sign.
Some long-serving Republicans have renounced the commitment they made to their constituents to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses.” Senator Saxby Chambliss says he cares “more about the country than … about a 20-year-old pledge.” Co-Republican and co-pledge-signer Senator Lindsey Graham agrees.
“Grover Norquist is an impediment to good governing,” Dowd said on This Week, ABC’s Sunday morning talking-head program. “The only good thing about Grover Norquist is, he’s named after a character from Sesame Street. ”
Welcome to sound-bite alley. Lucky for Norquist his first name isn’t Elmo or Snuffleupagus, eh?
Expanding on the theme of Norquist’s putative irrelevancy, Time’s Joe Klein says Norquist has passed his “sell-by date.”
Let me interject a question neither about muppets nor sour milk: What is “good governing”?
Does it require stripping the wallets of taxpayers to fund every conceivable government program concocted by those who would run every aspect of our lives?
Those who most eagerly wish to loot the rest of us seem, at the moment, to have the upper hand. That doesn’t mean that the rest of us should supinely wait to be rolled over. The fight for freedom is always relevant. So is keeping one’s word.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.