Real foe of compromise

Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform want to see our government reduced by half by 2025 and halved again by 2050. To that end, they have persuaded many legislators to sign their pledge to oppose all tax increases.

That (coupled with the drive to make Obama a one-term president) is the primary reason why efforts to compromise on a debt-reduction plan are at “a vituperative standstill” (“Republican plan would give Obama debt-limit power” – July 13).

Interestingly, the Norquist aim parallels the early Communist wish for “the withering away of the state.” Lenin wrote in 1918, “So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.”

Norquist said, “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.”

I suspect Norquist’s vision of government will end up about where Lenin’s has, but I also suspect our country is in for some pretty hard times before we deal practically, not politically, with our national finances.

Edward A. Reynolds

Spokane