Grover Norquist | |
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_(cropped).jpg) Norquist in 2017 | |
| Born | (1956-10-19)October 19, 1956 (age 69) Sharon, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Education | Harvard University (AB,MBA) |
| Organization | Americans for Tax Reform |
| Political party | Republican |
| Board member of | National Rifle Association,American Conservative Union[1][2] |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | David Norquist (brother) |
Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956)[3] is an American political activist and anti-tax advocate who is founder and president ofAmericans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes alltax increases. ARepublican,[4] he is the primary promoter of theTaxpayer Protection Pledge, a pledge signed by lawmakers who agree to oppose increases in marginal income tax rates for individuals and businesses, and net reductions or eliminations of deductions and credits without a matching reduced tax rate.[5] Prior to the November 2012 election, the pledge was signed by 95% of all Republican members ofCongress and all but one of thecandidates running for the2012 Republican presidential nomination.[6]
Norquist was born inSharon, Pennsylvania and grew up inWeston, Massachusetts. He is the son of Carol (née Lutz) and Warren Elliott Norquist, a vice president ofPolaroid Corporation,[7][8] and is ofSwedish ancestry.[9][10] His younger brother,David Norquist, has served in senior posts in Republican administrations at both theUnited States Department of Defense and theUnited States Department of Homeland Security and is currently President and CEO of theNational Defense Industrial Association.[11] Norquist became involved with politics at an early age when he volunteered for the 1968 Nixon campaign, assisting withget out the vote efforts.[12] He graduated fromWeston High School and enrolled atHarvard University in 1974, where he earned hisB.A. andMBA.
At college, Norquist was an editor at theHarvard Crimson and helped to publish thelibertarian-leaningHarvard Chronicle.[13] He was a member of theHasty Pudding Theatricals. Norquist has said: "When I became 21, I decided that nobody learned anything about politics after the age of 21."[12] He attended theLeadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia,[14] an organization that teaches conservative Americans how to influence public policy through activism and leadership.[15]
Early in his career, Norquist was executive director of both theNational Taxpayers Union and the nationalCollege Republicans, holding both positions until 1983. He served as Economist and Chief Speechwriter at theU.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1983 to 1984.[citation needed]
Norquist traveled to several war zones to help support anti-Soviet guerrilla armies in the second half of the 1980s.[citation needed] He worked with a support network forOliver North's efforts with theNicaraguanContras and other insurgencies, in addition to promoting U.S. support for groups includingMozambique'sRENAMO andJonas Savimbi'sUNITA in Angola[13] and helping to organize anti-Soviet forces inLaos. In 1985, he went to a conference in South Africa sponsored by South African businesses called the "Youth for Freedom Conference", which sought to bring American and South African conservatives together to end the anti-apartheid movement.[16] Norquist represented theFrance-Albert Rene government ofSeychelles as a lobbyist from 1995 until 1999. Norquist's efforts were the subject ofTucker Carlson's 1997 article inThe New Republic, "What I sold at the revolution."[17][18]
Norquist foundedAmericans for Tax Reform (ATR) in 1985, which he says was done at the request of then-PresidentRonald Reagan.[19] Referring to Norquist's activities as head of ATR,Steve Kroft, in a60 Minutes episode that aired on November 20, 2011, claimed that "Norquist has been responsible, more than anyone else, for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party."[20]
The primary policy goal of Americans for Tax Reform is to reduce government revenues as a percentage of the GDP.[21][22] ATR states that it "opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle."[23] Americans for Tax Reform has supportedTaxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) legislation[24] and transparency initiatives,[25] while opposing efforts to regulate health care.[26]
In 1993, Norquist launched his Wednesday Meeting series at ATR headquarters, initially to help fight President Clinton's healthcare plan. The meeting eventually became one of the most significant institutions in American conservative political organizing. The meetings have been called "a must-attend event for Republican operatives fortunate enough to get an invitation", and "the Grand Central station of the conservative movement."[4][13] Medvetz (2006) argues that the meetings have been significant in "establishing relations of ... exchange" among conservative subgroups and "sustaining a moral community of conservative activists."[27][28]
As a nonprofit organization, Americans for Tax Reform is not required to disclose the identity of its contributors. Critics, such as Sen.Alan Simpson, have asked Norquist to disclose his contributors; he has declined but has said that ATR is financed by direct mail and othergrassroots fundraising efforts. According to CBS News, "a significant portion appears to come from wealthy individuals, foundations and corporate interests."[4]
Prior to the November 2012 election, 238 of 242House Republicans and 41 out of 47Senate Republicans had signed ATR's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge", in which the pledger promises to "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates."[29][30]
The November 6, 2012 elections resulted in a decline in the number of Taxpayer Protection Pledge signatories in both the upper and lower houses of the 113th Congress: from 41 to 39 in the Senate, and from 238 to "fewer than ... 218" in the House of Representatives.[31] According to journalist Alex Seitz-Wald, losses in the election by Norquist supporters and the "fiscal cliff" have emboldened and made more vocal critics of Norquist.[32]
In November 2011,Senate Majority leaderHarry Reid (D-NV) blamed Norquist's influence for theJoint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction's lack of progress, claiming that Congressional Republicans "are being led like puppets by Grover Norquist. They're giving speeches that we should compromise on our deficit, but never do they compromise on Grover Norquist. He is their leader."[33] Since Norquist's pledge binds signatories to opposing deficit reduction agreements that include any element of increased tax revenue, some Republicandeficit hawks now retired from office have stated that Norquist has become an obstacle to deficit reduction.[34][35] Former Republican SenatorAlan Simpson (R-WY), co-chairman of theNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has been particularly critical, describing Norquist's position as "[n]o taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell."[4]
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Norquist was listed as one of the five primary leaders of the post-Goldwater conservative movement byNina Easton in her 2000 book,Gang of Five.[36] Working with eventual SpeakerNewt Gingrich, Norquist was one of the co-authors of the 1994Contract with America, and helped to rally grassroots efforts, which Norquist later chronicled in his bookRock the House.[13] Norquist also served as a campaign staff member on the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Republican Platform Committees.
Norquist was instrumental in securing early support for the presidential campaign of then-Texas GovernorGeorge W. Bush, acting as his unofficial liaison to the conservative movement.[13] He campaigned for Bush in both2000 and2004.[37] After Bush's first election, Norquist was a key figure involved in crafting Bush's tax cuts.[38]John Fund ofThe Wall Street Journal dubbed Norquist "the Grand Central Station" of conservatism and toldThe Nation: "It's not disputable" that Norquist was the key to the Bush campaign's surprising level of support frommovement conservatives in 2000.[39]
He has been active in building bridges between various ethnic and religious minorities and the free market community through his involvement withActon Institute,Christian Coalition andToward Tradition.[citation needed]
He has also "announced his plan to assemble a center-right coalition to discuss pulling out ofAfghanistan to save hundreds of billions of dollars."[40]
Norquist is active inTea Party politics. Speaking to a Florida rally, he said "tea party groups should serve as the 'exoskeleton' that protects newly elected Republicans" from pressures to increase government spending.[41]
Comprehensive immigration reform is an interest of Norquist's, who believes that the United States should have "dramatically higher levels of immigration" than it currently does.[42]
According to a 2011 memoir by former lobbyistJack Abramoff, Norquist was one of Abramoff's first major Republican party contacts.[43] Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform were also mentioned inSenate testimony relating to theJack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal, which resulted in a 2006 guilty plea by Abramoff to three criminal felony counts of defrauding of American Indian tribes and corrupting public officials. Records released by theSenate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grassroots lobbying campaigns.[44] Norquist denied that he did anything wrong, and has not been charged with any crime.
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Norquist's national strategy has included recruiting state and local politicians to support ATR's stance on taxes. Norquist has helped to set up regular meetings for conservatives in many states. These meetings are modeled after his Wednesday meetings in Washington, with the goal of creating a nationwide network of conservative activists that he can call upon to support conservative causes, such as tax cuts and deregulation. There are now meetings in 48 states.[45]
In 2004, Norquist helped California GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger with his plan to privatize theCalPERS system.[46] InVirginia's 2005 Republican primaries, Norquist encouraged the defeat of a number of legislators who voted for higher taxes.[45]
Norquist serves on the boards of directors of numerous organizations including theNational Rifle Association,[47] theAmerican Conservative Union,[1] the Hispanic Leadership Fund, the Indian-American Republican Caucus, and ParentalRights.org,[48] an organization that wishes to add aParental Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.[49]
In 2010, Norquist joined the advisory board ofGOProud, a political organization representinglesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender conservatives and their allies, for which he was criticized by theFamily Research Council.[50][51] Norquist also sits on a six-person advisory panel that nominatesTime's Person of the Year.[52] In business, Norquist was a co-founder of the Merritt Group, later renamedJanus-Merritt Strategies.[53] He is a member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations.[54]
Norquist signed theMadrid Charter, a document drafted by theconservative Spanish political partyVox that describes left-wing groups as enemies ofIbero-America involved in a "criminal project" that are "under the umbrella of the Cuban regime".[55]
Norquist favors dramatically reducing the size of government.[13] He has been noted for his widely quoted quip from a 2001 interview withNPR'sMorning Edition:
"I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."[56][57]
JournalistWilliam Greider quotes Norquist saying his goal is to bring America back to what it was "up untilTeddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that."[58] When asked by journalistSteve Kroft about the goal of chopping government "in half and then shrink it again to where we were at the turn of the [20th] century" before Social Security and Medicare, Norquist replied, "We functioned in this country with government at eight percent of GDP for a long time and quite well."[4]
Some smaller government advocates argue that Norquist's "obsession with tax revenue" is actually counterproductive with respect to minimizing the size of government.[59] Although the Americans for Tax Reform mission statement is "The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized",[60] critics at theCato Institute have argued that "holding the line on taxes constrains only one of the four tools (taxes, tax deductions, spending without taxation, and regulation) used by government to alter economic outcomes."[59]
Norquist publishedLeave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives,[61] in 2008. In 2012, he publishedDebacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future,[62] with John R. Lott, Jr. He has served as a monthly "Politics" columnist and contributing editor toThe American Spectator.[63]
Norquist has called for reductions in defense spending as one way to reduce the size of government.[64] He has endorsed anon-interventionist foreign policy and cuts to theU.S. military budget.[65]
Norquist has described himself as a "boring white breadMethodist."[66] In 2004, at age 48, he married Samah Alrayyes, a public relations specialist and was formerly a director of theIslamic Free Market Institute and a specialist at the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs atU.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).[67][68][69] The couple has adopted two children, both girls, one of whom is from the city ofBethlehem.[70]
According to friend and former roommateJohn Fund, Norquist's devotion to his political causes is "monk-like" and comparable to that ofRalph Nader.[13]
Norquist has competed three times in the comedy fundraiser "Washington's Funniest Celebrity" and placed second in 2009.[71][72][73] HumoristP. J. O'Rourke has described Norquist as "Tom Paine crossed withLee Atwater plus just asoupçon ofMadame Defarge".[74]
Norquist and his wife attended the annualBurning Man festival inBlack Rock, Nevada in August 2014. Norquist explained that he wished to attend because, "There's no government that organizes this. That's what happens when nobody tells you what to do. You just figure it out. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature."[75]
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