For many years, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has been asking candidates and elected official to sign his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” to oppose all tax increases. He claims that 236 current members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 41 current U.S. senators have signed it.
This is a good time to consider Mr. Norquist’s pledge and how it bears on efforts to work the way out of the lingering Great Recession and to keep the nation solvent.
Most important, it pushes signers toward extending the Bush administration’s tax cuts for the rich, which enormously increased the national debt and are scheduled to expire of their own accord at the end of 2012.
Mr. Norquist himself confused the matter by telling Washington Post editors that “not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.” So it doesn’t violate the pledge? they asked. “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.
Mr. Norquist, admitting that some of the confusion was his fault, tried to justify his remark by saying, “If there were no vote in Congress and taxes rose automatically, then no elected official would have broken his or her pledge.” But he had told the Post, “Any failure to extend or make permanent the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, in whole or in part, would clearly increase taxes on the American people.” He strongly favored letting the tax cuts stand. His signers must wonder just where they stand.
Aside from all that, the whole pledge thing has been overdone. Presidential candidates are being asked to pledge support for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, to oppose same-sex marriage, to oppose abortion rights, to oppose pornography, to oppose women in combat, and to oppose the supposed threat of the Islamic system of Sharia law.
Some, such as Rick Santorum, a Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania senator, see pledges as a means of stiffening the backs of office holders. Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, through a spokesperson, called the Norquist pledge “undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign,” according to the New York Times. It quoted another GOP candidate, Jon Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah, as refusing to sign anything. He said, “I don’t sign pledges — other than the Pledge of Allegiance and a pledge to my wife.”
They are right. At a time when many Americans are being taught to hate all government, we should continue to expect officials to exercise their best judgment in helping run the country. If not hamstrung by their own action in signing the Norquist pledge, some might be willing to compromise and even see good sense in actually raising taxes to stimulate the stagnant economy and help poor and middle-class people survive the hard times.