Politics: Serious About Taxes
Norquist, Grover G .
P O L I T I C S by Grover G. Norquist Serious About Taxes R onald Reagan won the 1980 election when he convinced voters that the question they should ask themselves in the polling booth was: "Are...
...The bill phases out the death tax, cuts the capital gains tax, expands allowable Individual Retirement Account contributions from $z,000 to $5,000, cuts every marginal tax rate by 1 percent, and eliminates the marriage penalty tax...
...When Republicans last spring decided to design a serious tax cut and use it to drive policy through the November 2000 elections, there were three possible outcomes...
...In August every broker could start his sales pitch by explaining the new tax bill and what it means for investors in IRAs, 4o1(k)s, and estate planning...
...Democratic claims that "no one wants a tax cut" are fading...
...When CNN asked voters if they would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who supported the tax cut, 42 percent said they'd be more likely to vote for a tax-cutting congressman and only 19 percent less likely...
...Which path Republicans will take will be determined by their weakest link—those few senators or congressmen who panic at the thought of being called unreasonable by the New York Times...
...George W. Bush's greatest advantage over Gore was in how each was perceived in handling the tax issue: 5o percent favor Bush and 29 percent Gore...
...The House and Senate Republicans havescheduled 150 town hall meetings to promote the tax cut...
...Republicans have a secret army in the fight for the tax cut: There are roughly 100,000 stock brokers in the U.S...
...House Speaker Denny Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott want to frame the November zoo() elections on whether the surplus means Washington should spend more money or Americans should get tax relief...
...The Republican base wound up disillusioned while Democrats could honestly state they had voted for the tax cut...
...In the House, Republicans lost four of their own: Constance Morella, Greg Ganske, Jack Quinn, and Mike Castle...
...But once the actual details of the cut were publicized and Republicans were seen passing the legislation, rather than talking about it, the polls shifted to reveal greater support...
...Why should Republicans compromise when Clinton is moving toward their position...
...Still it required a struggle to pass the cut...
...In his State of the Union speech last January, Bill Clinton called for $142 billion in new taxes and fees and no tax cut for the next /5 years...
...He won election as governor campaigning on the promise to eliminate the "car tax" in Virginia...
...B efore the tax cut was written and passed, polls showed little support for tax cuts...
...By contrast, the vote on the 1999 tax bill was a real vote with billions of dollars at stake...
...Instead, they announced they would "enroll" the legislation when they returned from the August recess one month later...
...This was their fate in 1998, when the House passed a small cut — $98 billion over five years—and the Senate refused even to vote on it...
...If brokers only discussed the tax cut in ten calls each day, that was one million contacts each day or 20 million phone calls during the August recess...
...A congressman who voted against the tax cut would find voters 41 percent less likely to support him and only zo percent more likely...
...Four times Republicans have forced a vote in the Senate on the lock box protection for Social Security...
...At noon the day of the vote, Senate leaders worried John McCain might come out against the cut as his ticket to liberal approbation and a seat on that weekend's television talk shows...
...Add to that the associations and newsletters that go out to 3 million farmers and the zo million self-employed Americans who will see death taxes repealed, and health insurance for the self-employed made ioopercent deductible, through this tax bill...
...New Jersey's Robert Torricelli, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, voted for the first version of the tax cut as did Nebraska's Robert Kerrey, who said, "To suggest we can't afford to cut income taxes when we are running a $3-trillion surplus is ludicrous...
...At a White House meeting, Clinton was forced to promise Republicans that he would make Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle pass the lock box...
...In his State of the Union address last January, Clinton called for no tax cuts for 15 years, claiming he wanted to use all the surplus to pay down the debt...
...If Republicans can hold together on the tax fight they will sweep the 2000 elections...
...First, Republicans could fail to pass a significant tax cut...
...And we delivered on our promise once I won," he said...
...In early August that changed to 4241 percent in favor of Republicans, and after three weeks of discussion of the tax cut, Republicans led 44-40 percent...
...In 1995 and 1996 the model was to send welfare-reform legislation Tax cuts are a GOP winner, and Democrats know it...
...But when you chop it into small pieces and explain to thepeople [all the] benefits...they're going to be with us in the end...
...To this end, on August 5 the House and Senate passed legislation to reduce federal taxes by $792 billion over the next ten years...
...Jim Gilmore is not surprised that popular support for the tax cut grows over time...
...House Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer and Senate Finance chairman Bill Roth had each spent six months designing his perfect tax-cut package...
...The Tarrence Group found that Texas Gov...
...Archer's legislation cut income taxes ten percent across the board...
...And throughout August, Republican leaders organized a full court press to build public support for the tax cut...
...Roth devoted more of the tax cut to expanding IRAs and other personal savings vehicles...
...GOP senators had refused to endorse the contract, which was only a promise to hold votes on ten issues if Republicans won the House...
...House and Senate leaders then did a very interesting thing...
...The Wirthlin Group conducted a poll from August 6 to 9, just as the legislation was enacted, and found that when voters were told what was in the bill, 67 percent of them supported the tax cut and only 31 percent disapproved...
...62 October 1999 The American Spectator unchanged to Clinton and have him veto it twice, and then as the /996 election drew near, to let his adviser Dick Morris convince him to sign the bill, lest welfare become the central issue in the '96 presidential campaign...
...Four times Democratic senators have filibustered—voting against protecting Social Security...
...In the Senate, the final vote was only 50-49, with all Democrats joined by Ohio's George Voinovich, Maine's Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter...
...Virginia Gov...
...Worse, by 1998 even those parts of the Republican coalition that had most benefited from the tax cut—married families with children who received a $500 per-child tax credit—had forgotten about it and joined in whining about the Republicans' failure to do "anything" for them...
...Alfonse D'Amato for one feared that his opponent would attack any vote for lower taxes as endangering Social Security...
...This time around, the idea is for Republicans to keep sending Clinton the same tax cut until Al Gore and his pollsters demand that Clinton sign the bill to take it off the 2000 agenda...
...Idaho's Michael Crapo, who supported the tax cut, was absent...
...If not, they will find themselves spending next year talking about urban sprawl and cocaine...
...Pollster Scott Rassmussen found that as support for the tax cut increased over the first three weeks of August, so did support for Republican candidates...
...The American Spectator • October 1999 63...
...The tax-cut would come from income tax overpayments over the next ten years...
...By early August, Clinton was saying he could support a $3oo-billion tax cut, and Senate Democrats were saying that moderates could back a $5oo-billion tax cut...
...But they also gained five Democratic votes: Virgil Goode, Ralph Hall, Gary Condit, Pat Danner, and Ken Lucas...
...In the view of Hastert's spokesman Pete Jeffries: "When you talk about a $792 billion tax cut it's natural people's eyes glaze over...
...GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...The 1984 and 1988 elections both centered on the question: "Should America continue Reagan's policies, or should we return to liberal policies on taxes and foreign policy...
...P O L I T I C S by Grover G. Norquist Serious About Taxes R onald Reagan won the 1980 election when he convinced voters that the question they should ask themselves in the polling booth was: "Are you better off than you were four years ago...
...and thousands of financial planners who spend their working days on the phone helping Americans invest their money...
...Once people understood that I meant it, that it wasn't rhetoric or another empty promise, support for my tax cut grew...
...The success in getting almost all the Republicans in the House and Senate to pass a specific tax cut that will shape the z000 election dwarfs the accomplishments of 1994's Contract With America...
...In June, voters who were asked whether they planned to vote for a Republican or Democrat for Congress said Democrats by 44-42 percent...
...They didn't send the tax cut legislation down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and give Bill Clinton a photo opportunity to veto the bill...
...Republicans thus went before voters last fall with no tax-cut message...
...Republicans had become the defenders of Social Security, and Congress was simply debating whether the income-tax surplus was to be returned to taxpayers or spent by politicians...
...New York Sen...
...Having avoided the failure of 1998, Republicans will now follow one of two strategies...
...To defuse Democratic charges that a tax cut would endanger Social Security or Medicare, Republicans this year came up with the "lock box" strategy to pass legislation that would "lock" away all Social Security tax payments and pay down the national debt...
...Wirthlin explains why earlier polls found less support: "Other polls give respondents a choice of options for using the surplus, but do not provide any details about the tax cut measure itself...
...Only then would the legislation be presented to the president for his signature or veto...
...He wound up costing Republicans the tax issue and himself a Senate seat...
...By this he meant he wanted to avoid a tax cut and leave the surplus to be spent in Washington...
...Then in just two days, Roth and Archer, working with Hastert and Lott, were able to write a joint House-Senate tax cut—the largest since 1981—that passed both houses...
...The good news for Hastert and Lott is that their strategy of writing a real bill and presenting it to the American people over August is working...
...The strategy for failure was that employed in 1997, when Republicans passed a small tax cut and continued to compromise the bill down to the point where most Democrats and Clinton could support it...
...The Christian Coalition and other allies are communicating with the 43 million married couples who will save an average of $1,400 each with the phase-out of the marriage penalty tax...
Vol. 32 • October 1999 • No. 10
