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Grover Glenn Norquist is president of anti-tax advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist is a member of the board of directors of the National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union.

Norquist is best known as the founder Americans for Tax Reform in 1985, at the request of President Ronald Reagan, and has headed the organization ever since. The primary policy goal of Americans for Tax Reform is to reduce the percentage of the GDP consumed by the government. ATR states that it "opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle." Americans for Tax Reform seeks to curtail government spending by supporting Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) legislation and transparency initiatives, and opposing cap-and-trade legislation and Democratic efforts to overhaul health care.

In 1993, Norquist launched his Wednesday Meetings series at ATR headquarters, initially to help fight President Clinton's healthcare plan and eventually becoming one of the most significant institutions in American conservative political organizing.

Norquist traveled to several warzones across the world to help support anti-Soviet guerrilla armies in the second half of the 1980s. He worked with a support network for Col. Oliver North's efforts with the Nicaraguan contras and other insurgencies, in addition to promoting U.S. support for groups including Mozambique's RENAMO and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in Angola.

Norquist was instrumental in securing early support for then Texas Governor George W. Bush, continuing a decades-long association with Karl Rove. After Bush's election, Norquist was a key figure involved in crafting Bush's tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund dubbed him "the Grand Central Station" of conservatism and told The Nation: "It's not disputable" that Norquist was the key to the Bush campaign's surprising level of support from movement conservatives in 2000.

Working with eventual Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Norquist was one of the co-authors of the 1994 Contract with America, and helped to rally grassroots efforts, which he later chronicled in his bock Rock the House. Norquist also served as a campaign staff member on the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Republican Platform Committees.

Norquist has been noted for his widely quoted quip: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Norquist favors the elimination of numerous federal organizations including the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts.

He has also stated, "Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal. If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050". The Americans for Tax Reform mission statement is "The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized."

Norquist is the author of the book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives, published on March 11, 2008 by HarperCollins.

Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform were mentioned in Senate testimony relating to the lobbying scandal for which Abramoff pled guilty in 2006. Norquist has denied claims that he did anything wrong. Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. A second group Norquist was involved with, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, received about $500,000 in Abramoff client funds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist