Former Sen. Alan Simpson scores!
Alan Simpson | AP Photo
Former Republican senator Alan K. Simpson, on GOP intransigence about raising taxes to help close the budget gap, and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist.
This comes from Talking Points Memo:
“Just a quick note about Grover Norquist,” Simpson testified. “If Grover Norquist is now the most powerful man in America, he should run for president. There’s no question about his power. And let me tell you, he has people in thrall. That’s a terrible phrase. Lincoln used it. It means your mind has been captured. You’re in bondage with a soul. “
Simpson went on: “So here he is. I asked him. He said, ‘My hero is Ronald Reagan.’ I said, ‘Well, he raised taxes 11 times in his eight years.’ And he said, ‘I know. I didn’t like that at all.’ I said, ‘Well, he did it. Why do you suppose?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. Very disappointing.’
“I said, ‘He probably did it to make the country run, another sick idea.’ ”
Ouch!
November 2, 2011 - 2:48 PM
President’s can’t raise taxes. Congress raises taxes.
Simpson nailed it. Very relevant to Linda K’s post of the day. Reagan was way too far left on immigration and taxes for the current crop of Republicans.
I’m not clear on how their signing an extra-constitutional obligation isn’t treasonous.
You are correct Henry, but the president signs the bills in order to make them become law. If the president doesn’t sign the bill it doesn’t become law unles 2/3s of Congress votes to override his veto.
Simpson says such things because he is a true American and also because he isn’t running for office.
Correct but you think a senator would know that President’s don’t raise taxes. They sign bills. He may be a “true American” but he couldn’t pass a middle school civics class.
Henry,
You’re intentionally misinterpreting Simpson’s comment for the purposes of issuing a weak rebuttal. (Which is typical).
The subtext of Simpson’s remarks were: If Jack Abramoff Associate Grover Norquist truly believes his anti-tax fever is the way most Americans feel, then he should test that out by running for president — and finding out that he’ll get hardy ANY votes.
That’ll teach Grover how popular his ideas are.
THAT’s the argument Simpson was making.
BTW, the president is the only elected official who can single-handedly stop a tax increase passed by Congress (unless he is overidden, which is relatively rare).
Keep in mind that Grover wants NO tax increases. So the presidency is the perfect office from which to stop the ones Congress enacts.
Henry,
Maybe the video linked below will help you understand the process better.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7266360872513258185#
More proof that St. Reagan would never make it in todays TPR led party.
Henry is correct as always. And Reagan only signed those bills in exchange for Democrat promises of tax cuts down the road which never came – a reminder for today’s Republicans not to trust 0bama’s lying ass when he promises the same thing.
But the overriding fact is, and the senator should know this, is that Reagan reduced all the federal tax rates enormously, including the top marginal rate from 70% to 28%. It’s funny when the libs hold up moderate-puke Republicans’ words us as if they mean something.
Takes Henry a while to catch on. He still thinks the unemployment rate under George Bush was 4.5% when he left office and that those 850000 jobs per month that the economy was losing were all Obama’s fault!
The unemployment rate was 4.5% when the Democrats took over Congress in 2007. Obama and the Democrats are responsible for the loss of 850,000 jobs.
Ron
You proved my point. Presidents can do almost nothing unilaterally. Congress creates the bill and sends it to the President to sign. Presidents can champion certain things but Congress has the authority to put it into action.
@9 – What you don’t seem to realize is that the majority of people who live in this country are moderate (“pukes” as you disdainfully call them). That means that the group of people with the most power to effect change are those that fall into the gray area that you continuously ignore…they include democrats, republicans, rich & poor – They are the people who are not represented by EITHER party but are represented in part by both parties.
You, Suzie, represent a tiny minority of extreme right folks…
Everybody wants to absolve 0bama of blame before he became president, but he was certainly part of the problem as senator voting for far-left legislation and being THE largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions (ie ill-gotten gain) relative to his very short time in the senate.
@13 That’s kinda funny, because you seem to want to blame *everything* on the past three years. No one is absolving Obama of his role in the current economy…but neither are we absolving the house, senate and prior presidents (including your beloved Republican ones).
Henry@9:07AM
Sure Henry. And Goldman-Sachs and the Koch brothers are benevolent charitable organizations devoted to the financial well being of the middle class. And pigs fly evry Wednesday morning over the Capitol Mall.
And Gov. McD. actually created a surplus in the Va. Budget. And Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real.
By the way Henry, that wasn’t a loss of 850000 jobs—it was 850000 jobs per month! And it ws the legacy of the Bush deregulartion and tax cutting policies while paying for two wars that was handed over to Obama to try to fix.
Re: #11
“Presidents can do almost nothing unilaterally. Congress creates the bill and sends it to the President to sign. Presidents can champion certain things but Congress has the authority to put it into action.”
Comment by Henry — November 3, 2011 @ 9:07 am
and
“It’s who controls Congress that matters.”
http://tinyurl.com/44ee4mg #61 Comment by Suzie — June 3, 2011 @ 11:07 pm
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So, why do you folk forget that truism when a Democratic President’s party does NOT have controls of both house of Congress?
What’s your point, unless it is to intentionally lay the label “hypocrite” on some of your own post?
Hum?