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Notorious anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist said Democrats who've blamed him for the super committee's bipartisan budget gridlock are simply lying.

The president of Americans for Tax Reform encouraged Republican members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to sign a pledge that binds them to resist raising taxes as they work to find $1.2 trillion dollars in deficit-cutting measures by Wednesday, but on CNN's "American Morning," he said the pledge was between the country and its congressmen, and not with him.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray called Norquist out Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" saying his name came up too often during super committee negotiations.

"As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do," she said.

Norquist fired back Monday.

"The senator is not telling the truth," he argued.

"For the congressmen and senators who signed the taxpayer protection pledge, they and the American people know the pledge is from them to the voters of their district and their state."

And although he admitted, "they have tried to say I'm the reason Republicans won't raise taxes, that's not nonsense," Norquist directed blame back at Democrats saying, "The Democrats want higher taxes. That's off the table."

"It's been off the table for a year," he continued. "The Democrats are a little hard of hearing."

Defending his role in promoting the pledge, first signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Norquist insisted again, "The pledge that congressmen and senators make is not to me despite what Reid and other Democrats pretend. When they say that, let's use the kind word. It's not true. It's a lie." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/21/norquist-democrats-are
-lying/, the lies are his. The "pledge" was not "between the country and its congressmen, and not with him." The vast majority of the American people WANT taxes increased on the rich, ergo to say it's between "the country" is a lie. Congressmen are supposed to REPRESENT the people who elected them, so ignoring what they want on this issue at a time of danger obviously leaves Congressmen out of the equation. Norquist has used his own power and influence to threaten and blackmail Republicans into never, under any circumstances, even consider raising any kind of taxes whatsoever, wich makes the "pledge" between HIM and our REPRESENTATIVES, pure and simple. He IS the reason Republicans won't even talk about raising taxes, that's been shown over and over, especially by forty of them writing that letter recognizing the truth: "To succeed, all options for mandatory and discretionary spending and revenues must be on the table." Of course, that's only one-SIXTH of the Republicans in Congress, so they were doomoed to failure, and Norquist's hold on the rest is perhaps not the ONLY reason, but the MAIN reason the others won't even consider compromise.

He also didn't get a pledge to "resist" raising taxes, he got one to flatly REFUSE to even CONSIDER raising ANY taxes which actually cost anyone, EVER. Verbiage counts.

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Today, the 12-member congressional super committee is expected to announce failure to reach an agreement to cut $1.5 trillion from the federal budget. One of major “sticking divides,” as Democratic co-chair Sen. Patty Murray (WA) noted, has been Republicans refusal to consider a widely supported tax increase on America’s wealthy.

This intransigence is largely motivated by the shadowy influence of lobbyist Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, who threatens to serve any Republican who breaks his anti-tax pledge with electoral defeat. Today on CNN, super committee member Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) noted that Norquist’s handcuffs on his GOP colleagues essentially makes him the “13th member of this committee without being there“:

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We Democrats put a $4 trillion dollar plan on the table. We had $1.3 trillion of cuts, and we had $1.3 trillion in revenue (that's called "compromise", if anyone's interested. N).... So we have the ability here to do something that’s fair for all Americans. But unfortunately, this thing about the Bush tax cuts and the pledge to Grover Norquist keeps coming up. Grover Norquist has been the 13th member of this committee without being there. I can’t tell you how many times we hear about ‘the pledge, the pledge.’ Well all of us took a pledge to uphold the Constitution and to full and faithfully and well execute our duties and I think that requires us to try and reach an agreement. So we have to compromise.

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Despite Norquist’s desire to “crush the other team,” it seems that more and more members of his own team are starting to agree with Kerry. GOP Rep. Mike Simpson (ID) said regarding Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, “I didn’t know I was signing a marriage agreement.” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) blasted Norquist for “paralyzing Congress.” Freshman Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) vowed to never sign another pledge, noting the last straw came when Norquist wouldn’t let Republicans close tax loopholes that subsidize ethanol production. Former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson simply said, “If Grover Norquist is the most powerful person in America, he should run for president” rather than peddle his influence backstage.

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Amen. Even some Republicans are beginning to see the danger he represents, but they have no hope of overcoming his power. Although some would like to, it appears it's already too late; he's won his "battle", he's made impossible any compromise in the Super Committee, to the detriment of the entire country and our future.

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A growing number of GOP lawmakers have disavowed Norquist’s pledge against supporting tax increases in recent days, telling The Hill they no longer feel bound to uphold a document that they signed, in some cases, more than a decade ago.

Norquist’s advocacy group, Americans for Tax Reform, lists 238 House signers of its Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but several House Republicans, and at least one Democrat, now say the anti-tax group is being deceptive and want their names taken off the list.

“I haven’t signed it since 1994,” Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) said, explaining that he didn’t even remember endorsing the pledge until Americans for Tax Reform produced the original document earlier this year.

In its publicly displayed list of signers “in the 112th Congress,” Norquist’s group includes several members who say they have specifically refused to sign the pledge during their most recent campaigns.

The sheet of paper they signed years ago, the lawmakers say, is no longer valid.

“My driver’s license expires. The milk in my refrigerator expires. My gym membership expires, and I find the website to be a little deceptive,” LaTourette said.

Norquist immediately dismissed the claim, which was echoed by several other House Republicans.

“Does that even pass the laugh test?” Norquist told The Hill. “A promise not to do something doesn’t have a time limit.

“I haven’t even had junior state legislators pull that crap,” Norquist added. (Note: "Pull that crap" on HIM, no mention of the American people. N.)

The pledge dissenters represent the latest challenge to Norquist, widely considered the nation’s most influential anti-tax activist.
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Democrats are insisting on new tax revenues, but the pledge mandates that any tax changes be revenue-neutral. They blame the pledge for the impasse in the talks.

“The difficulty we find is that every one of these discussions, Grover Norquist seems to be in the room,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday. “I am hopeful that the Republicans on the supercommittee will break away from this.”

Reid’s comments came as GOP panel members offered to raise tax revenue by limiting deductions in exchange for lowering rates (In other words, create no revenue. N.), in what aides characterized as a significant concession in the negotiations. Democrats panned the offer, saying the new revenue would be erased by extending Bush-era tax rates. Norquist, meanwhile, derided it in a Twitter post as an “idiot idea” reminiscent of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

All but six House Republicans are listed as signers of Norquist’s pledge, meaning that a voting majority of the body is on record opposing tax increases.
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Norquist has waged public battles with other Republican critics of his activism, most notably this spring with Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.). House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) raised eyebrows last week when he referred to Norquist as “some random person” even as he defended the House GOP’s steadfast opposition to tax increases.

Americans for Tax Reform lists two House Democrats, Reps. Robert Andrews (N.J.) and Ben Chandler (Ky.), as pledge signers, but Andrews told The Hill he signed the document a single time, in 1992, and wants his name removed.

“I understood it to mean that for the next term, if I were elected, I would not vote to raise taxes,” Andrews, who called the ATR website “terribly misleading,” said in an interview. “I honored that pledge. I never renewed it.

“I never considered it to be like my marriage vows,” he added. “I’m married to Camille Andrews, not Grover Norquist. I promised her to be faithful until death do us part, and I mean it. I did not promise him to oppose tax increases until death do us part.”

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) signed the pledge in 1998, when he first ran for Congress, and said he didn’t even know he was still on the list until earlier this year. “I thought it was for the next Congress,” Simpson said. “If it sticks with you forever, why do they ask you to re-sign it every two years?”

LaTourette said he had also assumed he had not signed it and even enlisted Boehner’s office to check with Norquist’s group, which confirmed that he did endorse the pledge in 1994.

ATR officials said the group’s practice is not to ask pledge-takers to sign it more than once, although several lawmakers reported being sent the pledge regularly during their reelection campaigns. Norquist said it was perhaps sent by state or local groups and that sometimes ATR sends it out en masse to candidates. But, he added, that’s never under the notion that those who have already signed it have to sign again.

Republican Reps. Howard Coble (N.C.), Pete King (N.Y.) and Lee Terry (Neb.) all indicated, either in interviews or through spokesmen, that they signed the pledge more than a decade ago but not for the current Congress.
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[Norquist} also signaled that ATR would not hesitate to target pledge signers if they voted for a debt deal that included tax increases.
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Some Republicans have disavowed the pledge not based on a dispute over its duration, but because they say it constrains their policy choices.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) signed the pledge prior to being elected to Congress in 2004, a spokeswoman told The Hill.

But Kerri Price, the spokeswoman, said that by the start of his second term, Fortenberry thought the pledge limited his ability to look at policy issues creatively. Since then, the Nebraska Republican has repeatedly asked, so far unsuccessfully, for his name to be taken off the list of pledge signers on ATR’s website.

“I don’t care to be associated with it. It’s too constraining,” Fortenberry told an August town hall in his district, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/192529-house-gop-lawmakers-want-out-
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So let's get real: It IS Grover Norquist himself who is driving this, demanding it, and PROMISING to "target" anyone who goes against it. That's power, pure and simple.

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He has shown an affinity for compromising his supposed ideals.

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