IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Super committee lectured over Norquist ties

A Republican took on Grover Norquist while testifying to the congressional super-committee on deficit-reduction.
Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist (file)
Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist (file)

A Republican took on Grover Norquist while testifying to the congressional super-committee on deficit-reduction. All six Republicans on the debt super committee, like almost every Republican in Congress, have signed Grover Norquist's pledge to never, ever raise taxes in any way.

Yesterday, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chair of President Obama's deficit-reduction commission, appeared before the super-committee and begged the Republicans to break their pledge to Grover Norquist.

"This is a fake to say that you get rid of a tax expenditure and it's a tax increase. So, we said we're not going to give into that business of tax increase so that Grover won't have a stroke over in his shop," Simpson lectured. "We're just gonna go around Grover and let Grover rant."

He drove his point home by sharing an anecdote of a conversation he once had with Norquist.

Simpson said, "I asked him, he said: my hero is Ronald Reagan. I said, well he raised taxes 11 times in his eight years. He said, I don’t know, I didn’t like that at all. I said, well he did it. Why do you suppose? He said, I don't know, it's very disappointing. I said, he probably did it to make the country run. Another sick idea."

The Republicans should have seen this coming, after what Senator Simpson told NBC's Chuck Todd on the "Daily Rundown."

"He can't murder you. He can't burn your house down," He told the msnbc host. "The only thing he can do to you is defeat you for re-election.  And if that means more to you than your country, you really shouldn’t be in Congress.

"