Grover Norquist slams top GOP lawmakers for caving on taxes

Grover Norquist slams top GOP lawmakers for caving on taxes Posted by Staff

Today, Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist came on the show to argue against raising taxes as part of a fiscal cliff deal. In doing so, he hit back at high profile Republicans who have discussed violating his group’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, including Representative Peter King and Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker. Norquist countered Rep. King’s assertion that the pledge he signed not to raise taxes only counted for his first term, saying “People take the pledge for the duration of their being in the House or the Senate… [I don’t] think someone like Peter King who runs claiming to be pro-life would argue that he promised to be pro-life for 18 months.” In regards to Sen. Corker, who released a proposal to increase revenues in return for entitlement reform, Norquist said “The interesting thing about these Republicans who come up with, ‘I’ll give you a trillion dollars of higher taxes on the American people…’ [is] they design a unicorn they want to trade it for, which is fundamental reform of entitlements. There’s one problem: All the Democrats who read that article say is 'Corker! We’ve got Corker! Corker will raise taxes.’ And they don’t read his ‘No! I have to have this other stuff too.’” He told Laura that Democrats won’t bother listening to Republicans who already agreed to higher tax revenue, saying “What Corker just did was make himself irrelevant to the debate…” Norquist summarized a conversation he had with Sen. Graham over his proposal for a 10-1 ratio in spending cuts and tax increases: “Senator, I think you’re discussing a unicorn that does not exist in the real world. Nobody’s offering you this, nobody will offer you this. All they’ll do is take the first half of your sentence, ‘I’m willing to raise some taxes…’ and say ‘Thank you very much. We’ve heard enough from you’”. He argued that violating their pledge not to raise taxes would again mean electoral defeat for Republicans, telling Laura, “It is very important… that the Republicans don’t have their fingerprints all over the murder weapon… a lousy budget deal with tax increases and no real spending, just [what] happened to Republicans in 1990, which cost us the presidency in ‘92” You can listen to the interview for free right here on Lauraingraham.com!

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