Tag Archives: cut spending

A Good Deal for Grover

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from the FeeheryTheory.com

I like Grover Norquist. He is a smart guy who has built an impressive organization, Americans for Tax Reform, that has served the conservative cause well over the last 25 years or so.

Grover has gone far in Washington by being unyielding in his opposition to increased tax revenue. His premise is simple: Washington is too big and spends too much. It doesn’t need any more money, and if it wants to balance the budget, it should cut spending.

His argument works for most Americans. Poll after poll shows that the American people want Washington spending cut, don’t want their taxes to go up and don’t like messy compromises that increase spending and raise taxes.

So why in the world would a supercommittee deal that includes increased revenues be good for Grover Norquist? And how can so many Republicans who have signed the Norquist pledge betray their own principles and vote for such a package and hope to survive a GOP primary?

Here are five reasons: Continue reading →

Congress:History is Calling, Please Answer

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

In the spring of 1981 Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman sat for weeks at a long table in room H-228 of the Capitol, his beady eyes peering over stacks of thick, black 3-ring binders containing the detail on most every federal program.

Stockman was holding over budget negotiations with his former colleagues in the House of Representatives. His mission was to cut spending, cut taxes, increase defense, and help his President, Ronald Reagan, usher in a new era of smaller, limited government, entrepreneurial innovation, individual freedom, and global prestige.

Piece of cake.

Few if any at the table, maybe with the exception of Jack Kemp, knew they were making history at the time. But they were, in the same way congressional leaders did for Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal and McKinley’s and Teddy Roosevelt’s regimes of political and regulatory reforms.

Continue reading →