Starving the beast of government - Norquist vs Krugman

Spearing the Beast

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 8, 2005 President Bush isn't trying to reform Social Security. He isn't even trying to "partially privatize" it. His plan is, in essence, to dismantle the program, replacing it with a system that may be social but doesn't provide security. And the goal, as with his tax cuts, is to undermine the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt.

Why do I say that the Bush plan would dismantle Social Security? Because for Americans who entered the work force after the plan went into effect and who chose to open private accounts, guaranteed benefits - income you receive after retirement even if everything else goes wrong - would be nearly eliminated.

Here's how it would work. First, workers with private accounts would be subject to a "clawback": in effect, they would have to mortgage their future benefits in order to put money into their accounts.

Second, since private accounts would do nothing to improve Social Security's finances - something the administration has finally admitted - there would be large benefit cuts in addition to the clawback.

Jason Furman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the guaranteed benefits left to an average worker born in 1990, after the clawback and the additional cuts, would be only 8 percent of that worker's prior earnings, compared with 35 percent today. This means that under Mr. Bush's plan, workers with private accounts that fared poorly would find themselves destitute.

Why expose workers to that much risk? Ideology. "Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state," declares Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. "If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state."

By the welfare state, Mr. Moore means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - social insurance programs whose purpose, above all, is to protect Americans against the extreme economic insecurity that prevailed before the New Deal. The hard right has never forgiven F.D.R. (and later L.B.J.) for his efforts to reduce that insecurity, and now that the right is running Washington, it's trying to turn the clock back to 1932.

Medicaid is also in the cross hairs. And if Mr. Bush can take down Social Security, Medicare will be next.

The attempt to "jab a spear" through Social Security complements the strategy of "starve the beast," long advocated by right-wing intellectuals: cut taxes, then use the resulting deficits as an excuse for cuts in social spending. The spearing doesn't seem to be going too well at the moment, but the starving was on full display in the budget released yesterday.

To put that budget into perspective, let's look at the causes of the federal budget deficit. In spite of the expense of the Iraq war, federal spending as a share of G.D.P. isn't high by historical standards - in fact, it's slightly below its average over the past 20 years. But federal revenue as a share of G.D.P. has plunged to levels not seen since the 1950's.

Almost all of this plunge came from a sharp decline in receipts from the personal income tax and the corporate profits tax. These are the taxes that fall primarily on people with high incomes - and in 2003 and 2004, their combined take as a share of G.D.P. was at its lowest level since 1942. On the other hand, the payroll tax, which is the main federal tax paid by middle-class and working-class Americans, remains at near-record levels.

You might think, given these facts, that a plan to reduce the deficit would include major efforts to increase revenue, starting with a rollback of recent huge tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, the budget contains new upper-income tax breaks.

Any deficit reduction will come from spending cuts. Many of those cuts won't make it through Congress, but Mr. Bush may well succeed in imposing cuts in child care assistance and food stamps for low-income workers. He may also succeed in severely squeezing Medicaid - the only one of the three great social insurance programs specifically intended for the poor and near-poor, and therefore the most politically vulnerable.

All of this explains why it's foolish to imagine some sort of widely acceptable compromise with Mr. Bush about Social Security. Moderates and liberals want to preserve the America F.D.R. built. Mr. Bush and the ideological movement he leads, although they may use F.D.R.'s image in ads, want to destroy it.

Grover Norquist - CNP 1996, 1998; President, Americans for Tax Reform 8; president, Americans Against a National Sales Tax; registered lobbyist, Merritt Group; president, Americans against a National Sales Tax/VAT; national leader of the "No New Taxes" pledge for political candidates; economist and chief speechwriter, U.S. Chamber of Commerce 1983-1984; Campaign staff on the 1988, 1992, 1996 Republican Platform Committees; former Executive Director of the National Taxpayers’ Union; former Executive Director of the College Republicans; heads an ad hoc group he calls the "Leave Us Alone Coalition," which links disparate pieces of the Republican party;

"...Norquist helped the Heritage Foundation 9 write the Republican's 1994 Contract With America. Shortly thereafter, Norquist led a right wing charge to "de-fund" the left, declaring that "We will hunt [these liberal groups] down one by one and extinguish their funding sources." [from Buying a Movement 10 ]....Writes the monthly column 11 "Politics" for the American Spectator. 12" 13

owing the Seeds of GOP Domination

Conservative Norquist Cultivates Grass Roots Beyond the Beltway

By Laura Blumenfeld

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 12, 2004; Page A01

In a noisy corner of Harry's Tap Room, two men huddled over a map of the United States. They spoke in quiet voices:

"Tennessee will be run by Steve."

West Virginia -- we have three people."

"North Dakota is tough. You talked to Michigan?"

Diners brushed past the men unaware, as Ken Mehlman and Grover Norquist hopscotched across state lines, refining what Norquist calls, with a wink, "our secret plan to seize power." Mehlman, the Bush-Cheney campaign manager, and Norquist, gardener of the conservative grass roots, were discussing a new tactic for the 2004 election: The campaign would activate the conservative base as it never had before.

Norquist, 47, is known for his weekly strategy sessions of conservatives, a Washington institution. But quietly, for the past five years, he also has been building a network of "mini-Grover" franchises. He has crisscrossed the country, hand-picking leaders, organizing meetings of right-wing advocates in 37 states. The network will meet its first test in the presidential race. On this evening at Harry's, several blocks from campaign headquarters in Arlington, Norquist presented his master contact list to Mehlman, mapped out and bound in a book.

"Fabulous, Grover. Awesome," Mehlman said, scanning the book like a hungry man reading a menu. "We're going to take that energy and harness it."

The binder was Norquist's gift to the presidential race. His aspirations, though, extend far beyond the White House. Congress, governorships, state legislatures, the media, the courts -- Norquist has a programming plan, and it is all Republican, all the time. Norquist closes his letters, "Onward." He takes the mission so seriously, he has named a successor in his will. Socially, he is often introduced as the head of the vast right-wing conspiracy. He accepts the title with a faint blush.

"He is an impresario of the center-right," the president's strategist, Karl Rove, said in an interview. Rove said Norquist's activists helped President Bush push trade promotion, tax cuts, judicial nominees and tort reform, among other items. "They've been out there slogging for us in the trenches."

They gather every Wednesday morning in a boardroom of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist is president of the anti-tax group. The shades are down, the lights are weak, yet an incandescent assuredness infuses the room. A hundred and twenty people mill around, eating bagels, distributing talking points, exchanging business cards and tips. They are lobbyists, analysts, senior White House and Hill staffers, advocates for property rights, gun ownership and traditional values. There are never enough chairs. The air is as warm as a hatchery.

"Guys, could you all please be seated," Norquist said on a recent Wednesday. " 'Cause as usual, we have a fun-filled, action-packed, spine-tingling agenda."

The sessions are by invitation only, and off the record. A Washington Post reporter was allowed access on the condition that no participant would be quoted without permission.

One week, Norquist called on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to speak. "Thank you all," Frist said, rising. He smiled at men with American flags on their lapels, at women who have driven around tornadoes to attend meetings. He addressed them in a manner a man might use with his guard dog, mixing appreciation, condescension and a note of fear. Ever since the conservative base turned on George H.W. Bush and he was defeated for reelection in 1992, the Republican leadership has been wary of its bite.

"I understand that it takes all of you to get this far," Frist said. A member asked Frist about passing legislation with a 51-seat majority.

"I'm in the business of recruitment," Frist said, of the 2004 Senate elections. "I need to net up three folks."

In the meantime, Norquist offered to lobby senators on specific issues: "Let us know about votes. We'll see if we can get you three more good guys."

Bad Guys and Evildoers

Political pressure is the intended outcome of every meeting. Although members represent disparate causes, Norquist said, "they play nicely together." He calls it the "leave us alone" coalition. Unlike groups on the left, which fight among themselves for government aid, he said, the right unites over its disdain for government.

Norquist sits in the middle of the table, ticking down a list of presenters. His features are pointy and directional, giving him a look of forward momentum. His eyebrows appear to be blown back by a headwind. In rapid succession, people take the microphone and make their appeal.

On the estate tax: "Let's team up," urged Richard Patten, executive director of the American Family Business Institute. "We can amplify our separate armies and kill the death tax."

On judicial nominees: "Blast-fax your media list," said Kerri Houston, vice president of policy at Frontiers of Freedom. "If this thing doesn't blow a hole through the Beltway, we're in big trouble."

After a presentation by Matt Schlapp, the White House director for political affairs, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, exclaimed, "This is an administration that cares not just about the president, but about all the other races. I've never seen such coordination."

Coordination, though, assumes cooperation. For those who do not cooperate, Norquist plays enforcer. Democrats are "bad guys," but errant Republicans are "evil." When the House voted to pass school vouchers in September, Norquist growled, "Who voted wrong on that?" A Hill staff member distributed the Republican blacklist. On the Internet access tax vote, he targeted two Republican senators from Tennessee and Ohio: "We're trying to get [Lamar] Alexander and [George] Voinovich to behave. Any advice appreciated."

When Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) tried to pass a state tax increase, Norquist helped defeat it. "We're going to keep him on life support," he said. "We'll put him in a freezer, as an example." He gave the Alabama state party chairman an award for opposing the hike. Instead of a plaque, Norquist sent him a sword with a steel blade. Even presidents have felt his wrath. Norquist first organized the Wednesday meetings in 1993 to galvanize opposition to Bill Clinton's health care plan. He keeps a rubber stamp by his desk, "Find Him and Kill Him." Near it, he has taped a yellowing scrap on which he had written: "Oct. 12, 1987. Bush: 'I won't raise your taxes, period.' " Norquist still condemns the first President Bush for breaking that promise.

He criticized George W. Bush's policies as well, when Bush was governor of Texas. But since Bush has become president, Norquist has muted his disapproval. Paul Weyrich, another conservative leader, said the younger Bush has earned the base's respect: "I have worked with administrations going back to Nixon. These people are more responsive than any other White House."

Liberals offer less favorable interpretations of Norquist's support for the administration. "He's a crass hypocrite," said Leon Wieseltier, an editor at the New Republic. "He won't attack the president because it would be imprudent to be intellectually honest with the king. He's a Washington grotesque -- a man who has created a successful character in a tacky sitcom, and he doesn't want to hurt his ratings."

Norquist treats speakers from the White House deferentially. Although political candidates are put on the spot -- "What's your stand on guns and babies [abortion]?" -- Cabinet members and other senior officials are not. After introducing Daniel Sutherland, the Department of Homeland Security's officer of civil rights and civil liberties, Norquist cocked his head: "Explain to us, are we for this or against this?"

When Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, came, Norquist asked, "For those of us on the outside, when someone sticks a mike in our face and says, 'Spending is up! You guys on the right are failing,' what are the talking points?"

Bolten rattled off the budget statistics that he could use.

Yet under Bush, the largest budget surplus in history has become the largest deficit in history. In the past, Norquist has said he wants to shrink government "down to the size where you could drown it in a bathtub." Now, glancing up at Bolten, Norquist ventured politely: "Is there a single agency you want to get rid of? It would be really helpful for us to say, 'This administration wants to get rid of . . . ' "

Norquist's conversion from ideological outsider to member of the establishment reflects a broader transformation in the movement. One Wednesday morning, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Norquist's comrade in the Republican revolution of 1994, walked into the boardroom. He smiled at Norquist, his tongue resting on his lip, like a boy who was about to misbehave.

"Health," Gingrich began his pitch, "is one of the great opportunities for conservatism."

Congress was voting on the Medicare bill that week. For the next 15 minutes, Gingrich tried to convince the audience that the proposal, the greatest entitlement expansion in a generation, was good for the conservative cause. The reception was mixed.

"Be positive. Let the other side be nasty," Gingrich said, a shade pinker than when he had entered the room. His message: If you want to hold on to power, you cannot be purists. "The best way to beat Hillary [Clinton] is to build our base. Shrink hers." He licked his bottom lip: "Then we can crush her."

While he spoke, three groups circulated petitions opposing the Medicare proposition. Others grumbled that Gingrich was taking this view because his new Center for Health Transformation was funded by health care companies.

Some conservatives have stopped attending the meetings because, they say, the institution has "gone Beltway." Now that Republicans are in power, the emphasis has shifted from ideology to lobbying for rich clients, they say. At one session, former representative Bob Livingston (R-La.) promoted a telecom client. At another, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating (R) talked to the audience as president of the American Council of Life Insurers. One coalition dropout dismissed Norquist as a "homo economicus" -- driven by market forces rather than by social issues.

Tuna Fish and Hand Lotion

And yet Norquist's bachelor townhouse bears evidence of a man whose ideological core is hard. The art in his living room is early Ronald Reagan. His Costco-brand shirts hang in a closet under a picture of former Senate leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) signing a no-tax pledge.

He is often described as an eccentric. For a bedside table, Norquist uses a giant green canister for Kraft parmesan cheese. He displays what he hopes will be the world's largest collection of airsickness bags. At staff meetings, employees say, he holds court while variously sitting on a giant red plastic ball, eating tuna from a can, rubbing his feet against a massager and sniffing hand lotion as he kneads it into his fingers. He excuses himself to go to "the ladies room."

His manner is charming, though bitterness creeps into his voice when he talks about classmates at Harvard, where he attended college ('78) and business school ('81). As a Republican, Norquist felt isolated among the students, whom he calls "Bolsheviks." At a reunion in the early 1990s, he said, he told a classmate: "For 40 years we fought a two-front war against the Soviet Union and state-ism. Now we can turn all our time and energy to crushing you. With the Soviet Union, it was just business. With you, it's personal."

He leaves the impression that perhaps some of the 18 hours a day he devotes to establishing a permanent Republican majority has to do with punishing college tormenters. As for being socially awkward, his mother had advised him when he was growing up in Weston, Mass., to "dance with the wallflowers." If you do, she said, you will be at the center of things.

That is how Norquist spends his days -- dancing with wallflowers. He cultivates state legislators, whom others overlook, working them like a farm team for Congress. He organizes events to bring nontraditional groups into the Republican tent: Indians, gays, single women. Some conservatives have attacked him for his outreach to Arab and Muslim Americans, charging that he has embraced radicals with ties to terrorism. Administration officials, including Rove, have said there is no truth to the allegations.

Other conservatives offered reasons of their own for avoiding him. One called his meeting "a freak show" that is "intellectually insulting." Another said he "represents a rare level of vitriol and suspicion." Many dismiss him as a media creation, a showman who is better at generating press than political results. None would speak for the record. His friends said this was proof that his detractors speak out of jealousy.

"He's the engine that empowers us all," said Gary Maloney, a Republican consultant and friend. "I call him up and say, 'What should I think?' "

Now he's focusing on the "mini-Grover" state coalition meetings and their role in the presidential campaign. In Maine, organizers bake cranberry muffins. In Hawaii, members fly in from all the islands. In Texas, participants are so boisterous they limit meetings to a single issue. A precursor of the group in New Mexico had to be shut down after it was taken over by conspiracy theorists who believed black helicopters from the United Nations were moving people around at night.

Norquist issued meeting guidelines, including: "No gossiping. No whining. No rambling discourses or philosophical discussions. We know we are hard core." Whether they are religious activists, home-schoolers or business advocates, participants find a place where they can joke about being "extremists" and "rabid right-wingers." Greg Blankenship, leader of the Illinois group, said it was a relief in his liberal state to assemble with like-minded conservatives: "I guess you could say I live in enemy-occupied territory."

The gatherings in one New England state are so effective, they place stories in the local media four or five times a week. "No one knows it's the coalition doing it because there is no publicity of the meetings," the leader wrote in an internal memo. "I don't know how much longer we can operate below the radar."

During a monthly conference call with the state meeting leaders, Norquist asked the Vermont representative for dirt on the former governor, Howard Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. "It would be extremely helpful for you to get the information out," Norquist said. "So people around the country have talking points on Dean."

Democrats used to anger him, Norquist said. He's past angry now. "Do you get mad at cancer? We'll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We're not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover's world. I feel about the left the way [Donald H.] Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis."

And after Norquist purges the United States, there is the rest of the world. He says this with the confidence of a man who uses a black laundry marker as a pen. He has helped start Wednesday meetings in Canada, New Zealand, England and Japan. He has learned to be patient: "I now understand you can't just explain to the idiots how to do it and to see it your way, because they're too foolish to see it."

Norquist knows he will survive politically, as sure as he outlived Reagan and Gingrich. He will always be relevant, he said, because he embodies the issue that unifies Republicans: lower taxes.

NO NEW TAXES – because any increase of government is a step on the road to serfdom. As in Naomi Klein article the decision to fire General Garner and remake Iraq in a neocon mold was a triumph of this POV - get rid of the government and install low flat taxes.

hayek

Mont Pelerin Society, > http://www.montpelerin.org/[ was formed at Mont Pelerin in Switzerland in 1947, at a meeting of some of the leading families of the ancient European oligarchy, chaired by the economist, Friedrich von Hayek. Mont Pelerin's main thinktank is the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA). From there it expanded worldwide creating thinktanks. Ludwig von Mises, is a CNP/reconstructionist connected libertarian institute which esteems notables such as Friedrich von Hayek. Friedrich von Hayek, protégé and colleague of Mises, is one of the founders of the Mont Pelerin Society.

The Mont Pelerin Society was founded in 1947 at a meeting in Switzerland, in a chalet on the slopes of Mt. Pelerin. According to various sources, among its founders were some of the oldest and most powerful families in Europe, such as the von Hapsburgs, former rulers of Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Thurn und Taxis family, which ran the intelligence and postal system for that Empire since the Sixteenth Century...those present such as Max von Thurn und Taxis, had supported Hitler during the 1920s and 1930s. The Mont Pelerin Society called for a "conservative revolution" - for the "elimination" of nation states, high tax rates and welfare systems and the return to laissez-faire economics. Soon after it was founded in 1947, the Mont Pelerin Society moved to London... Beginning in the mid-1970s, with lavish corporate financing, the Mont Pelerin Society, spawned a series of "think tanks" 43. Von Hayek, the founder, wrote The Road to Serfdom in London in 1944, while teaching at the British Fabian Society's London School of Economics.

"...in London Friedrich Hayek was creating an organization that would later re-form as the Mont Pelerin Society. The early group was formed in 1939 and was known as the Society for the Renovation of Liberalism.

Moral Majority ~ Dr. Robert J Billings, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich and Ed McAteer, Ronald P. Godwin, Joseph Coors, Nelson Bunker Hunt , Dr. Timothy LaHaye, Carolyn Malenick

Board Member of The American Conservative Union (ACU). 14 ACU Board Member Becky Norton Dunlop is the Vice President for External Relations for the Heritage Foundation. Other members of the many, include those who currently are or have been CNP members: Jesse Helms (CNP); M. Stanton Evans (CNP); David Keene, Chairman ACU (CNP); Donald Devine, Vice Chair ACU, an adjunct scholar at The Heritage Foundation, (CNP); Morton Blackwell, (CNP) Jameson Campaigne, Jr (CNP) and many more

Grover Norquist was the keynote speaker at the 1995 National Conference on School Choice, which is sponsored by National Center for Policy Analysis 15 and CEO AMERICA. 16 The 1998 Conference special guest was CNP's Hon. Edwin Meese III .

DOBSON

One former employee of Focus on the Family has coined the term "Dobsonology":

"Dobsonology is a mixture of psychology, humanism, New Age, political activism and ecumenism packed in a silver box of morality; it is tied with a golden ribbon of assorted Scriptures -- not necessarily in context. It is being sold to the Christian Community in lieu of Biblical authority through sound doctrine by James Dobson and his Focus On The Family Organization." 36

In the late 1980s, Dobson helped form the Religious Alliance Against Pornography which included Roman Catholic priests and bishops. The 1986 meeting was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Dobson praised the unity which was present at that meeting and stated that "there has been great camaraderie among the top leaders of virtually all religious groups" in the U.S. (1/87, Focus on the Family). Of this alliance Jerry Kirk said, "Never before have we seen Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Greek Orthodox and (Mormon) leaders come together in such agreement and cooperation on an issue." Also represented at the meeting were the National Association of Evangelicals [See: Fuller> The Original Five] National Council of Churches, the Southern Baptist Convention 37 and Charismatics. A Catholic archbishop called the alliance "an ecumenical miracle" (8/22/98, FBIS)." 38

Dobson has frequently welcomed Roman Catholics and Mormons on his radio show, welcoming all as members of "the family of God." In late 1989, Dobson offered a calendar with a peculiarly Mormon slogan, "Families Are Forever," which summarizes the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression of Mormon "temple-sealed" families (4/15/91, Calvary Contender 39.).