Although a growing number Republicans are distancing themselves from the Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge, Grover Norquist is confident that Congressional Republicans will force massive cuts to government programs, rather than accept any tax increases. On Thursday, he vowed to stymie President Obama’s agenda so much that the administration will have nothing left to do but launch an unnecessary war.
Norquist made the bizarre Wag the Dog prediction on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal:
NORQUIST: We got lots of things Obama claims to be for, and we will make — we, the Republicans in the House and Senate — will make him actually make those spending restraints, in order to get the continuing resolution out [for] a week, two weeks, a month. Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years. He’s not gonna have any fun at all. He may decide to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won’t be any fun to be here, because he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to.
Watch the video:
Norquist made the bizarre Wag the Dog prediction on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal:
NORQUIST: We got lots of things Obama claims to be for, and we will make — we, the Republicans in the House and Senate — will make him actually make those spending restraints, in order to get the continuing resolution out [for] a week, two weeks, a month. Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years. He’s not gonna have any fun at all. He may decide to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won’t be any fun to be here, because he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to.
Watch the video:
It is noteworthy that Norquist says “we” when referring to the Congressional Republicans. This would seem to conflict with his group’s frequent claim that it is a “a non-partisan coalition of taxpayers and taxpayer groups who oppose all tax increases.” And it seems to ignore the 50 Congressional Republicans who have already distanced themselves from his ironclad oath.
Norquist’s comment that spending cuts would lead President Obama to launch a war of choice, while likely intended as merely a tasteless joke, also demonstrates his shoddy memory. Indeed George W. Bush’s $806 billion Iraq War — waged under false pretenses and unfunded — was a major driver of the decline from the surpluses left by President Bill Clinton to the shortfalls inherited by President Obama. Norquist cheered the effort at the time — and apparently still doesn’t realize that overseas invasions actually require federal spending.
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