Politics: Eye on the States
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Eye on the States T he Washington press is like the drunk looking for his keys under a street lamp. He'd lost them somewhere else, but preferred to search where the...
...Such is the power of the tax issue, that Democratic governors in Alaska, New Hampshire, and Nevada, along with Maine's independent governor, have been reduced to advocating tax increases on cigarettes only—and then insisting they For conservatives, Washington isn't where it's at...
...Yet Hillary managed to subsidize clothing, too, with some stunningly aggressive tax deductions...
...Each season Hillary gave away dozens of bags of old clothing—hers, Bill's, and Chelsea's—to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and local shelters and charities...
...This marks a revolutionary change in people's ability to defend themselves and control their lives —and it had nothing to do with legislation from Washington...
...The American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of more than 2,000 conservative state legislators, has endorsed state constitutional amendments that would require a two-thirds vote to increase taxes...
...Lisa Schiffren "Bill and Hillary at the Trough" TAS, AUGUST 1993 The American Spectator • August 1997 65...
...Who was it who said that successful revolutions capture the countryside first and only then lay siege to the capital...
...Jim Edgar actually pushed for a tax increase that he tried to mask as a tax shift...
...Despite her busy schedule, she personally listed and valued each item...
...Polls show 68 percent support for Carlson's plan, which would broaden the definition of educational expenses...
...South Carolina passed a resolution calling on Washington to abolish federal gasoline taxes and allow the states to run their own highways...
...Voters had to know they can trust that if they pull the GOP lever that their taxes will go down, not up and not sideways," hesaid about his efforts to keep the Republican Party the tax-cuffing party...
...44 BOY CLINTON FOUR YEARS AGO Despite an income that put them in the top 3 percent of American families, for the Clintons in the 1980s, most things in life were free—except clothing...
...All along, of course, they want to coopt Republican legislators into voting for a tax hike disguised as social protection...
...Bill's and Chelsea's underwear: $1 a pair...
...In Oregon both houses of the legislature have called on Congress to allow Oregonians to opt out of Social Security and manage their own retirement plans...
...Going along is politically easier than fighting to overturn the court's decision through a constitutional amendment or to cut spending elsewhere in the state budget...
...While Iowa's Terry Branstad has tried unsuccessfully to increase the state's tuition tax credit from $ioo to $500, Minnesota's Arne Carlson has threatened to veto the $6.7 billion education spending bill if it does not include $150 million in tuition tax credits and deductions, a threefold increase over current credits...
...When it comes to tax hikes, politicians of both parties love to say "the devil made me do it...
...He was joined by twenty-three state legislators who had signed the anti-tax pledge, and in the end Foster agreed to let the sales tax fall by one penny...
...Pennsylvania became the44 Saved by his own chairman, Bush is now in a solid position to run for re-election and possibly the presidency...
...Yearly totals range from just under $1,000 to well over $2,300...
...Edgar wanted to cut property taxes by $1.5 billion while increasing income taxes by 25 percent or $2 billion...
...Democrats control just five states: Hawaii, Vermont, Georgia, Missouri and Maryland...
...Only in Washington can one forget that cutting taxes remains politically popular nationwide...
...This would drop thecost of auto insurance by $ioo per car and defund the ambulance chasers...
...In Texas, state GOP chairman Tom Pauken saw through this ruse and he led the fight against shifting taxes...
...John Rowland, who faces a Democrat-controlled state legislature, threatened to veto any budget that did not include income tax cuts...
...Defended Second Amendment rights...
...Since his election in 1990, he has reduced state income taxes by 38 percent, and is movGROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...It's an interesting political world out there...
...According to NRA estimates, more than 56o,000 residents in Florida, Texas, and Virginia alone hold concealed-carry licenses, an amount greater than the 500,000 policemen working for various levels of government...
...Terry Branstad signed a ten-percent across the board income tax cut, a promise followed through after Republicans won control of the state senate in 1996...
...Rowland also cut gasoline taxes by six cents a gallon...
...This year twenty-one states have introduced legislation to bring about such amendments...
...They've found that business taxes, which are passed on in higher prices for goods and services, or sales taxes, which involve only a few cents or dollars at a time, are politically less volatile...
...Fought for school choice...
...But the real story of where the country is going is to be found in the fifty states where governors and legislatures are tackling tax cuts, school choice, gun control, and even privatization of Social Security...
...Keeping an eye on the states also helps ward off the depression caused by the slow pace of change in Washington...
...Illinois taxpayer leader Jim Tobin organized public opposition...
...He'd lost them somewhere else, but preferred to search where the light was better...
...For instance, the excuse for threatened tax hikes in Illinois, Ohio, Texas and New Jersey has been judicial rulings mandating equal spending per pupil...
...As taxpayer activists pointed out, hidden business taxes are easier to raise than visible property taxes...
...Michigan is debating legislation to allow citizens to buy auto insurance that opts out of expensive coverage for "pain and suffering...
...Thirty-one states have enacted "shall issue" laws requiring local authorities to issue a concealed gun permit to any law-abiding citizen who has taken a gun safety course...
...Pauken is now running for Texas attorney general...
...Since his election in 1994, Rowland has won a total of $1.2 billion in tax relief He is publicly committed to abolishing the state income tax introduced by Lowell Weicker in 1991...
...Colorado and Kansas passed concealed carry laws only to see them vetoed by Governors Romer and Graves...
...64 August 1997 • The American Spectator simply want to reduce teen smoking, not raise new revenue...
...Following on the success of last year's California Civil Rights Initiative, Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute is helping activists in ten states prepare initiatives for the 1998 ballot...
...In Illinois, Republican Gov...
...The states remain ahead of Washington on numerous fronts...
...Initially Bush wanted to "pay" for his cuts by increasing as many as 75 business taxes—which would ultimately have brought about higher taxes on all Texans...
...Like Bush, Louisiana's Mike Foster pledged not to raise taxes —and also needed help to fend off special interests clamoring for higher taxes...
...It is not too early to examine how these Republicans wield power in their own states: Have they actually cut taxes...
...Although the tax bill passed in the Democrat-controlled house—in a vote that saw most Republicans opposing their governor—it died in the senate's revenue committee when majority leader Pate Phillips, who too has signed the anti-tax pledge, opposed the plan...
...Much attention has been paid to Texas Gov...
...Big-foot reporters think they can measure the nation's political mood following the budget debate through the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and endless posturing between Capitol Hill and the White House...
...Conservatives thinking ahead to 2000 would do well to scout the thirty-two GOP governors...
...The state's four-cent sales-tax extension was scheduled to phase out by one cent this year and three cents next year...
...Washington state rejected the governor's call for higher gasoline taxes...
...Politicians have figured out that taxpayer revolts like California's 1978 Proposition 13 are provoked by high taxes that have to be paid in one lump sum...
...Early this year in Iowa, Gov...
...School choice continues to advance at the state level...
...Arizona recently passed a $500 tax credit for anyone contributing to a scholarship fund for children attending private schools...
...Arizona now has the largest number of charter schools in the nation, and the new legislation should create as much as $5o million in private school scholarships...
...ACRI executive director Jennifer Nelson predicts that anti-preference legislation will be introduced in all fifty states next year...
...While Bill Clinton's veto limits the art of the possible in Washington, Republicans control both the governorship and the legislature in eleven states: Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah...
...State taxpayer leader Walter Abbott thought otherwise, and led a talk radio campaign against the tax...
...ing closer to his goal of abolishing the tax altogether...
...The question to them doesn't have to be what would you do as president, but what did you do as governor...
...In New Hampshire, party chairman Stephen Duprey put backbone in fellow Republicans by arguing that a vote for any tax hike—even a small one on cigarettes—would violate the anti-tax pledge implicit in GOP politics...
...Even though activists got a late start, twenty states have introduced legislation to end racial preferences...
...twenty-seventh state to enact charter school legislation...
...Connecticut's Republican Gov...
...Instead, Foster decided to make the four-cent extension permanent, arguing that keeping the tax was not a tax increase...
...George W. Bush's plan to reduce property taxes by $1 billion over the next two years by drawing on the state's billion dollar surplus...
...North Dakota, Mississippi, Utah, and Virginia have passed reciprocity legislation that recognizes the concealed carry permits of other states...
...Saved by his own chairman from muddying his earlier anti-tax commitments, Bush is now in a solid position to run for re-election next year and possibly the presidency in 2000...
...The Democrats caved fifteen minutes before the midnight deadline and state taxpayers won $14 million in income tax cuts and another $46 million in property tax relief...
...Recent candidates who took the presidency from the other party—Carter, Reagan and Clinton —were all governors...
...Even if stymied in Washington by Clinton's veto and Republican fear of the Washington Post and New York Times, conservative issues are moving ahead nationwide and in many cases becoming law...
...History suggests one of them could win the GOP's nomination...
...B ill Clinton's success in pushing gun control in 1993 and 1994 (when Democrats controlled Congress) has obscured the success of the National Rifle Association at the state level...
...Highlights include valuing Bill's used undershirts at $3 each and Bill's used running shoes at $10 and consistently donating the sort of personal items that most of us feel are best thrown away...
...Arizona's Fife Symington isn't allowing his legal problems to slow his commitment to cut government...
...The one-cent reduction alone would save taxpayers Silo million...
Vol. 30 • August 1997 • No. 8
