From the Patriot Post Digest 06-48:
Good news! One Senator on the list above is actually a FairTax supporter: Richard Lugar (R-IN) supports tax reform but supports it via the FairTax plan. Therefore, it's entirely reasonable for him not to sign the pledge proferred by an organization that supports the flat tax. Lugar is definitely a tax reformer.
Bad news! The other 14 Republicans on the list above have forgotten core Conservative values: they support NO tax reform whatsoever. They are not interested in our core value of low taxes, less government. They are simply Fauxpublicans.
GOP members refuse to sign tax pledgeAmericans for Tax Reform is an organization that supports the idea of a flat tax as a reform vehicle. It seems entirely possible that some of these Republicans did not sign the pledge because they have pledged their support to Americans for Fair Taxation which supports tax reform via the FairTax. Therefore, to be fair, I checked the list of FairTax supporters in Congress to see if they might be supporting a different plan for tax reform instead.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform made it very simple: If you are an elected official and you say that you will not raise taxes, then sign a simple pledge saying so. We’d like to believe that every Republican would sign it, because one of the core beliefs of Republicanism is small government and low taxes. Yet there are 15 members of the GOP House and Senate caucuses who have yet to put their signatures on Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
For those of you who see your representatives listed below, do demand that they sign the pledge.
In the House: Christopher Shays (CT), Michael Castle (DE), Steve Buyer (IN), Harold Rogers (KY), Vernon Ehlers (MI), Ralph Regula (OH), Todd Russell Platts (PA), Frank Wolf (VA).
In the Senate: Richard Lugar (IN), Charles Grassley (IA), Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Thad Cochran (MS), Pete Domenici (NM), George Voinovich (OH).
Good news! One Senator on the list above is actually a FairTax supporter: Richard Lugar (R-IN) supports tax reform but supports it via the FairTax plan. Therefore, it's entirely reasonable for him not to sign the pledge proferred by an organization that supports the flat tax. Lugar is definitely a tax reformer.
Bad news! The other 14 Republicans on the list above have forgotten core Conservative values: they support NO tax reform whatsoever. They are not interested in our core value of low taxes, less government. They are simply Fauxpublicans.
Comments
Not to be a wet blanket, but isn't this group now under investigation by the Justice Department because of its relationship with convicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff? My understanding is that Grover Norquist has hired a legal team in anticipation of an indictment.
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Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
By James V. Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
snip
Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.
The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff funneled money from his clients to the groups. In exchange, the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or news releases that favored the clients' positions.
Special Report
Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist at the center of a wide-ranging public corruption investigation, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison on March 29, after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that required him to provide evidence about members of Congress.
Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Senate Finance Committee."
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I guess one way or another this will all come out in the course of the investigation.
Seems to me though that the group would be within its rights to hire a lobbyist. Heck, any group worth a hill of beans would be enlisting the services of a lobbyist to move their agenda forward. Abramoff has a bad name but if it hadn't been him, it might have been any other lobbyist.
Frankly, I'm a FairTax advocate so it wouldn't bother me too much if Norquist's group got bogged down in court! I think the Flat Tax is just another way for the federal government to continue their practice of penalizing productivity.