Politics: Fuss Budget
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Fuss Budget I f every senator who had promised to vote for the balanced budget amendment had actually done so, the measure would have passed on March 4 with 74...
...GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...When a similar effort fell one vote short in 1995, the Republican holdout, Mark Hatfield of Oregon, was singled out by the media as the reason for the defeat—never mind the Democratic senators who had also opposed the measure...
...In a letter on February 25, Gephardt denounced plans to appoint a new bipartisan commission to study the CPI option...
...Even worse for the Democrats, many of them lied...
...Should the president veto this legislation it would become more difficult—though not impossible —for the establishment to blame Congress for any shutdown...
...In Michigan, state senate president Dick Posthumus has introduced supermajority legislation that may become a 1998 initiative if it fails to pass the legislature...
...Florida Democrats were reduced to arguing that they had no intention of ever imposing a state income tax on Florida—one of seven states free of such a tax...
...Of course, he undercuts each of these promises in weasel-worded asides that back-load tax increases and spending cuts...
...ARE YOU TIRED OF THOSE LIBERAL LIES...
...As an added bonus, the CPI fix would then leave the GOP open to future Democratic demagoguery about "slashing" Social Security...
...Hard Cover • $21.95 in book stores nationwide — you pay only $15.95...
...66 May 1997 • The American Spectator Clinton's budget continued his rhetorical surrender to political reality...
...If it believed Clinton's budget was serious, it would have asked Al Gore if he really intended in his first two years as president to increase defense spending, raise taxes, and cut discretionary spending by $70 billion...
...The Heritage Foundation, Jack Kemp, and others warned Republicans not to fall into the CPI trap, but it took House minority leader Richard Gephardt to save the GOP...
...As for the 27 states without the initiative process, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative organization representing more than 3,000 of the nation's 7,500 state legislators, had drafted a model constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote for any new tax or tax increase...
...Not until 2001 and 2002, when Al Gore would supposedly be president, would 98 percent of Clinton's deficit reduction take place...
...Don Imus Special Offer to Readers of The American Spectator Order direct from Payback Publishing and Save...
...Florida went a step further last year, passing an initiative requiring two-thirds support of all voters on election day for any change in constitutional taxes (read imposing a state income tax...
...The press immediately called it another case of the Republican Party "failing to enact one of its top priorities...
...If the conservatives win in budget talks, history will record that the Bill Clinton who balanced the budget in 2002 was the Democrats' Gorbachev who simply managed his party's surrender...
...Each will be held responsible for defeating an amendment that has enjoyed 70 to 8o percent popular support over the past two decades...
...Instead, it received only 66 votes, again falling one vote short of the two-thirds required to enact a constitutional amendment...
...This year there was no fig-leaf for the Democrats...
...Find out why...
...The book the New York Post says "will have Republicans rolling in the aisles and Democrats ducking for cover...
...What's more, both spending and the deficit would climb during each year of Clinton's second term...
...We pay all shipping & handling...
...The initiative won 70 percent of the vote...
...He tried to play the same game with welfare reform, saying he was for it when he meant something else...
...Once Republicans took him at his word, he had no defenses...
...Some of the Washington establishment held out hope that Clinton's phony budget might still balance if Clinton and Congress accepted the Boskin commission's recommendations to reduce the Consumer Price Index...
...Mauro takes off the gloves and imparts a bare-knuckle payback lesson to the left...
...It's not going to happen...
...11 Another "train wreck" between Clinton and Congress now looms, if only because the president has everything to lose...
...California's 1978 Proposition 13 was the first such measure to affect new taxes...
...Meanwhile, in 2000, Clinton's advertised tax reductions would phase out—and $76 billion in higher taxes on business would become permanent...
...SHING Call Today...1-800-247-6553 • Ext...
...Clinton cronies cringe at the mention of this book...
...It'll be the same with Clinton's budget and its seeming opposition to activist government, spending hikes, higher deficits, and defense cuts...
...But when submitted to Congress it turned out his budget wouldn't even balance in 2002 - it would run a $69 billion deficit that year...
...Trent Lott, who under Senate rules has less control over his chamber's scheduling, told a conference call of state taxpayer leaders that he would schedule a vote as close to April 15 as possible...
...George Gekas and Missouri Sen...
...This shift in emphasis to the super-majority amendment is good news for supply-siders who worry that a BBA might force future tax hikes and certainly would put the brakes on any Reaganite tax cuts...
...Not so fast...
...Thinking ahead to a possible replay of fall 1995, Pennsylvania Rep...
...Oilt The Right Strikes Back...
...Forget all that happy talk about a reelected Bill Clinton earning his place in history by balancing the budget after sitting down with a chastened Newt Gingrich and sober deal-cutter Trent Lott...
...He promises to balance the budget, cut taxes for families, reform Medicare, and reduce spending by $100 billion over five years while maintaining defense spending...
...It was an open Washington secret that Clinton's budget was dead on arrival...
...According to chairman Michael Boskin, who was George Bush's top economic adviser, a 1.1 percent decrease in the CPI would reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over the next ten years...
...This year two freshman senators, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, pulled the same stunt...
...Their temporary reprieve will cost them politically...
...In 1995 six Dems who had campaigned in favor of a balanced budget amendment— Daschle, Dorgan, Ford, Feinstein, Hollings, and Bingaman— did an about-face once safely elected...
...It's a red, white, and blue frontal attack on the "politically correct" left...
...GET YOUR COPY TODAY...
...The Gekas and Ashcroft legislation would keep Congress en route to a balanced budget, leave the government open, and put pressure on both sides to reach agreement...
...421 The American Spectator May 1997 67...
...Its lack of credibility notwithstanding, The president isn't serious about a balanced budget...
...Jon Kyl of Arizona and Rep...
...Joe Barton of Texas, Republicans will now focus on the upcoming vote on a supermajority amendment to require a two-thirds vote of Congress to raise taxes...
...If Gephardt prevails, Democrats will be merciless toward Clinton, who agreed to pursue a balanced budget out of weakness...
...Republicans held their fire in a self-imposed period of "niceness," while the press was merely cynical...
...Led by Sen...
...Hilarious !"-Oliver North "A very funny book...
...New Jersey taxpayer groups now intend to begin a recall of Torricelli...
...The Brookings Institution has already calculated that the CPI "fix" would cut a new retiree's benefits by 25 percent over the next fifteen years...
...John Ashcroft have intoduced the Government Shutdown Prevention Act of 1997—which would keep government open in the case of a budget impasse...
...If the president failed to sign the necessary appropriations bills or if no continuing resolution was in effect, spending levels would be set at 75 percent of the lowest of recent or pending appropriations bills...
...The House leadership has promised a vote each year on April 15—tax day—until the amendment passes...
...The Senate version would set the levels at 100 percent of the lowest alternative...
...It would be a wise insurance policy for Republicans as they re-enter the dangerous budget debate...
...Gephardt will use biglabor against Al Gore if Clinton drifts right...
...Looking ahead to 1998, taxpayer groups in Ohio are working with state treasurer Ken Blackwell to place a supermajority amendment on the November ballot...
...For one thing, this time the amendment got unanimous support from the 55 Republican senators...
...Written in response to the best seller Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, author J.P...
...The commission would have provided bipartisan cover for Clinton and Congress to agree on CPI changes and ostensibly produce a balanced budget by 2002.44 Clinton tried to play the same game with welfare reform, saying he was for it when he wasn't...
...The Boskin solution appealed to the Washington establishment for a second reason: trimming CPI adjustments on Social Security and other entitlements would obviate the need to eliminate other programs and even free up room for new spending...
...Arizona in 1993 and Washington in 1994 followed suit on tax hikes, as did South Dakota and Nevada in 1996...
...START LAUGHING THIS EVENING...
...The April 15 vote is part of an ongoing national campaign to require supermajorities for any new tax or tax hikes in all fifty states...
...This time around, each of the 34 Democrats will be blamed for withholding the one vote that would have made a difference...
...The attack ads are probably already written...
...In fact, 40 percent of this deficit reduction would come from tax increases produced from increased bracket creep, which would be the only way to achieve significant tax hikes with a Republican Congress...
...In his State of the Union address, Clinton referred twelve times to "my balanced budget plan...
...a must read for Republicans,"- The NY Post "This book is hilarious...
...POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Fuss Budget I f every senator who had promised to vote for the balanced budget amendment had actually done so, the measure would have passed on March 4 with 74 votes...
...Here's the book that has the Conservatives laughing...
Vol. 30 • May 1997 • No. 5
