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October 31, 2006

The Fruits of Grover Norquist

One might be pretty thrilled to learn that Howard County has decided to give its elderly, limited-income residents a break on their property taxes. One might also expect that the king of tax cuts, one Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, would be supportive. Alas, no. He reasons that targeted tax relief only makes it harder to reduce the tax rates for everyone.

On its face, that might seem reasonable - if you ease the pressure to cut taxes across-the-board, then such tax cuts might never happen. One might, therefore, expect Norquist would then oppose any sort of targeted tax cuts. But that would be where one would be wrong. Because not only does he support a flat tax (which sadly will fall hardest on the poor and ease the burden of the wealthy considerably), he also supports eliminating the estate tax, capital gains taxes and dividend taxes - all tax cuts targeted to benefit the wealthy. Because they're the ones producing jobs, don't you know.

Perhaps Norquist forgot about the small business community, which employs half of America, largely on a shoestring budget. But I digress.

Norquist can talk nice all day long about tax equity and fairness and all that, but where the rubber meets the road, it's always the same old story. The poor and the middle class pay more and the rich pay less. His lovely words are worthless; it is by his fruits that you know him.

Posted by Becky at October 31, 2006 09:37 AM