Grover pulls GOP strings

It would be a mistake to think that the modern Republican Party is more interested in balanced budgets and debt reduction than it is in tax cuts. Federal tax collection as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, but good luck finding an elected member of the party who will entertain the notion of raising taxes as part of a solution to budgetary imbalance.

If you question the party’s lapse as the guardian of fiscal responsibility, you need only compare it with the GOP of yesteryear. Washington Post reporter Lori Montgomery wrote a recent article about the differences and just how deep the anti-tax sentiment runs these days.

Today’s Republicans love to point out that President John F. Kennedy saw the wisdom of tax cuts when he reduced the top income tax rate. However, congressional Republicans at the time were worried that this would cause a budget deficit. President Dwight Eisenhower supported the continuation of high wartime taxes to reduce the nation’s debt. President Richard Nixon defended the continuation of a surtax to pay for the Vietnam War. Fearing deficits, President Gerald Ford opposed a permanent tax cut.

All of these leaders would be RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) today, because they put balanced budgets ahead of cutting taxes. President Ronald Reagan remains a hero, but that’s because his rhetoric on taxes and smaller government is beloved. Never mind that he agreed to several tax increases (including a huge hike in the payroll tax that rescued Social Security for decades to come), never once proposed a balanced budget and oversaw an expansion of the federal government. The Reagan tax hikes were a responsible response to growing imbalances, but they would be shot down today.

The bipartisan national debt commission and the Gang of Six (now down to five senators) are looking at a simpler tax code that would widen the tax base, lower rates and eliminate many deductions as part of a debt and deficit solution, which includes significant spending cuts. But because this would increase revenue overall, the grand poo-bah of anti-tax purity has declared that this must be opposed by any politician who has signed a pledge to never raise taxes. He Who Must Be Obeyed is Grover Norquist, who invented the tax pledge and is the head of Americans for Tax Reform.

Norquist has famously stated that his goal is to shrink government until it is “small enough to drown in a bathtub,” which, of course, holds appeal for those who think the government is as scary as the crazy lady in “Fatal Attraction.” But if you believe that Medicare, Social Security and a robust defense structure need to stay afloat and that debt needs to be submerged, then the tax pledge poses a problem. All but 13 of the 288 GOP members of Congress have signed the pledge, and if they break it, they can expect a well-funded candidate in the next primary. As a result, Norquist crows that no Republican has voted for a major federal tax increase since 1991.

The fear of being Grovered is the reason that only two Republicans – Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia – are discussing, albeit privately, the revenue side of the budget equation. When Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was a member of the Gang of Six, he waged a lonely public battle against Norquist.

Thus the current debate over solving the nation’s debt problem has been made more difficult, because Republicans will only entertain an all-spending-cuts solution. The only Republican leaders who will openly discuss raising revenue are former officeholders. Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, believes the problem is so dire that he recently abandoned the Bush tax cuts, saying the government should tax like it’s 1999.

It was back then that the budget was last in balance, but significant debt still remained. A fiscally responsible party would’ve banked the surpluses to pay down the debt and prepare for future challenges. Instead, Republicans passed long-term tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and shoved the “amount due” notice into a drawer.

Today, they want to make those cuts permanent, despite their contribution to the budget crisis. It’s too bad they can’t tap the party’s rich tradition of fiscal sanity instead of rolling over for Grover.