Three Pinocchios For Norquist

[bigtree]

from Glenn Kessler at the WaPo FactChecker: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/grover-norquist-a-misleading-accounting-of-recent-history/2011/11/27/gIQAAhER2N_blog.html

“Raising taxes slows the economy. Raising taxes kills jobs. Government spending does not create jobs. The idea that if you take a dollar out of the economy from somebody who earned it, either through debt or through taxes, and give it to somebody who is politically connected, that there are more dollars around? That if you stand on one side of the lake and put a bucket into the lake and walk around to the other side in front of the TV cameras, pour the bucket back into the lake and announce you’re stimulating the lake to great depths. We just wasted $800 billion on stimulus spending that added to debt that killed jobs. There are fewer jobs than before.”

— 'Anti-tax advocate' Grover Norquist, on “Meet the Press,” Nov. 27, 2011


In 1982, the Democrats said, ‘Gee, if you let us raise taxes, we’ll cut spending $3 for every $1 of tax increase.’ Taxes were raised. Spending didn’t go down, spending went up. The same thing happened in 1990, although George Bush -- Herbert Walker Bush -- was promised $2 in phony spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Taxes went up, spending actually increased. It wasn’t cut. Twice the Democrats have said let’s raise taxes and cut spending; twice taxes were increased, spending was not reduced at all.”

— Norquist, later in the same program


The Facts

. . . let’s examine Norquist’s claim that “we just wasted $800 billion on stimulus spending that added to debt that killed jobs. There are fewer jobs than before.”

First of all, Norquist appears to have forgotten that, depending on how you do the math, the stimulus bill included between $218 billion and $288 billion in tax cuts. Norquist is a huge fan of marginal rate reductions so perhaps he does not consider items such as the “Making Work Pay” tax credit to be a true tax cut. But it is simply incorrect to refer to “$800 billion of stimulus spending.”

When the stimulus bill was passed in February 2009, there were 132.8 million jobs in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and as of last month, there are 131.5 million jobs. But that assumes the full force of the stimulus took effect immediately, which is absurd. The recession had not ended yet and job losses continued for several months before the stimulus kicked in.

While different studies disagree on the impact of the stimulus, most conclude it had some impact.— and none say it “killed jobs.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that it “increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.”

The Pinocchio Test

Norquist has every right to his opinions on the dangers of excessive government spending and taxation, but he needs to come up with a better set of facts to make his case. His description of recent budgetary history bears little relation to the historical record. His comment on the stimulus bill was also highly misleading.


read more: www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/grover-norquist-a-misleading-accounting-of-recent-history/2011/11/27/gIQAAhER2N_blog.html

[HughBeaumont]

1. The Most Important Yard Gnome In History . . . lies to suit his agenda?

NOoooooooooo . . ..



Set up in yard. Red Hat not included.

[stellanoir]

2. Yet he has taken over the majority of Congress

most likely through blackmail.

So the absolute ruse of representative leadership becomes increasingly more evident. I really didn't think it could do so.

Although I had heard and read about him for years and years, I only saw him interviewed relatively recently.

What a creepy dude !!!

He is totally doing what I started calling "oligarchical hypnogoguery" at the beginning of '01.

It's a form of low level mind control through repetition and tonality. He's very adept at it.

I thankfully rarely get headaches but when I've seen him a few times on the tube speaking in that tone of voice for more than 15 seconds, I start to develop a headache and start looking around for the remote, or maybe even a rock to throw at the TV.

Very few people make me feel that way. He does so intensely.

yuck

[doc03]

3. I saw that interview, what a repulsive piece of pond

scum. He opposes extending Obama's payroll tax break saying it was meant to be temporary. According to him it was called a payroll tax holiday so therefore if that tax cut expires it is not a tax increase. The Bush tax cuts were also meant to be temporary, but not in his mind, he says in order to pass that tax cut the Democrats insisted it be temporary. So therefore what the Democrats call temporary means temporary with the payroll tax but the Bush tax cuts that the Democrats insisted on being temporary are now permanent because he says so. The guy says it all with a poker face, I swear he looks like a robot, he has no facial expressions.

[doc03]

4. How can a Congressman hold a pledge he made to that

a--hole over the Constitution he swore to uphold in his oath of office? What if he was around back when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, what would they do just say no you can't raise taxes for the war because I swore to Grover Norquist that I wouldn't under any circumstance raise taxes. I don't get it, those people should be impeached.

[geardaddy]

5. People who hold the pledge above the Constitution should face impeachment hearings.

[Frank Jameson]

7. If the Norquist pledge had been around in 1941....

.... Hitler's successors would still be ruling Europe.

[jtrockville]

8. Norquist claims the pledge was made to the American People.

So even though the majority of the American People want to raise taxes on the wealthy, these jerks have pledged to do the opposite.

Puzzling why the folks who took this pledge haven't been run out of congress.

[Frank Jameson]

6. I'd like to be in charge of running a campaign against

every damn one of these scum that signed that pledge. All 238 of them.

With a concentrated TV ad campaign to tell the American people just *exactly* where their GOP Congressman's loyalties lie -- the Democrats would win in a walk.

[spanone]

9. why give a lobbyist a forum on a national political news show?

he's the problem

i didn't see the program but i'm certain david gregory challenged him on each and every point, right?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. One of those Grover Grovelers got taken to task

http://www.afterld.com/showthread.php?43704-Constituents-Rebuke-GOP-Congresswoman-For-Her-Allegiance-To-%91No-Tax%92-Pledge&p=1422808

“ Last week, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) continued the trend of Republicans avoiding angry constituents by holding an invitation-only “community coffee.” But even the small number of constituents at the exclusive event did not let Herrera Beutler off the hook, asking her tough questions about her allegiance to a “no tax” pledge:

(…)

At Tuesday’s meeting, the more intimate setting didn’t cause people to shy away from criticizing the congresswoman. Kathy Thompson, a Longview real-estate broker, blasted Herrera Beutler for signing conservative activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to support any tax increase of any kind.

“I think this is totally un-American. I think your only pledge should be to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Thompson said. ..."


Clearly, all the invitees at the Congresswoman's coffees are Republicans and Ms. Thompson nonetheless voiced her displeasure with the Norquist pledge. Yay for her.