Think Progress

Norquist pens letter to Bush regarding bailouts.

Today, President Bush approved a $17.4 billion emergency loan to America’s ailing domestic auto industry. In response, right-wing ideologue and Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist — who once said he wants to reduce government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub” — penned a letter to Bush with a simple message, “Re: Bailouts“:

noii1.JPG

Of course, Norquist has never been fond of helping out American workers; he has professed a desire to “crush labor as a political entity” and ultimately “break unions.”



52 Responses to “Norquist pens letter to Bush regarding bailouts.”

  1. tombaker says:

    tee-hee – he thinks dubbie (or anyone else, for that matter) gives a rat’s anus what he thinks.


  2. Nevar says:

    At least Grover understands George’s reading level.


  3. Alejandro says:

    So now Think Progress is on Bush’s side? Bush cares about American workers now?


  4. Zooey says:

    Is this “No” strictly for the auto bailout?


  5. Bozo The Neoclown says:

    Dear Grover,

    Here’s my reply: fcuk you. your ideology has been thoroughly rejected by the american people.


  6. Leftside Annie says:

    Re: your letter

    Dear Grover:

    Eat sh!t and die.

    Yours truly,

    America


  7. Badmoodman says:

    Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist

    – - On this holiday season, may you drown in a bathtub.


  8. COProgressive says:

    Norquist? Norquist? Isn’t he that lamebrain down in Georgia that rambles on about drowning the government?

    Does anyone still listen to that moron? His 15 minutes of fame passed years ago.

    Now on to something important…… Next….


  9. Bozo The Neoclown says:

    the thing about clowns like this grover character that really gets my hackles up is this: reduce government and dervices government provides and these morons will scream the loudest if their house burns down and there isn’t a fire department or if they get robbed and there’s no police force. bunch of bedwetting thumbsuckers who want everything but don’t want to pay for anything.


  10. dbadass says:

    You’d be f ucked up too if you had to grow up being named Grover. Stupid freakin’ muppethead, just pay your taxes and contribute to the common good you dumbass cheap prick…


  11. 00mpp00 says:

    Those dirty Right-wingers need to admit their fetish with killing unions and the working-class American family and get it over with. That’s what opposing the auto bailout is all about.

    http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/


  12. McWars says:

    Signed,

    Dweller of the 19th Century


  13. tarazan says:

    Norquist was Jack Abramoff buddy.That saya a lot about him.

    I’m surprised that he did not go to prison yet.


  14. McWars says:

    Americans for Tax Reform

    Translation: Americans for Me Me Me Me


  15. dabubba says:

    … To #2 , Dr.Hussein Matt , nice job !! Excellent communication skills !! I think that even W can read that one !!


  16. Proud American Liberal says:

    The Neocon “War on American Workers” rages on.


  17. multilee says:

    Ahhh so this is what Rethuglican foot-stamping looks like. Please hold your breath, Grover, please please? I need another good laugh….


  18. Perry logan says:

    Which part of that won’t George understand?


  19. Bilbo Hussein Baggins says:

    Anyone want to bet that Norquist didn’t have the same reaction to the 350 billion Wall Street bailout.


  20. SWBob says:

    TO: Grover
    FROM: GWB

    RE: Bailouts

    Please resend. Does No. mean number? What size number do you think is right for the bailout? Next time include a picture. That really helps.


  21. Nevar says:

    George’s reply…

    dear Groover

    Thank yoo fer this wonderful contribootion to the Librery.
    It will occupy …’scuze me, be a guest on… the wall next too the rear exit.

    your pal,
    George


  22. stewarjt says:

    Where was Grover Nosetwist on the Wall St. bailout? Conspicuously silent?


  23. kasinca says:

    Why isn’t this bearded thug in jail with Jack Abramoff? Why would anyone listen to this fool after all the policies and the philosophy he has championed failed? Grover should be squashed like a bug on the floor.


  24. Bozo The Neoclown says:

    can’t we shoot this grover out of a cannon like they did to the one on the muppet show? perhaps we could aim him at the bathtub he wants to drown government in.


  25. Winski says:

    Dr. Hussein Matt at No. 2 above has it EXACTLY right…


  26. barfly says:

    Norquist condemns prospective bailout, just before Bush issues government loans to car companies. A clear signal that the conservative movement has failed. I think Bush no longer fears them, nor holds them in high esteem, since they’ve been distancing themselves from his “unconservative ” legacy. The bailout can be read as a slap to the conservative movement.


  27. deebaser says:

    Norquist is a jackhole (and wrong), but that is pretty funny. Sometimes even dingleberries can deliver teh lulz.


  28. KEVKEV IN APACHE JUNCTION says:

    Red Grover, Red Grover
    Let Karl Rover come Over!


  29. KEVKEV IN APACHE JUNCTION says:

    Grover Norquist
    AKA Grover Glenn Norquist

    Born: 19-Oct-1956
    Birthplace: Sharon, PA

    Gender: Male
    Race or Ethnicity: White
    Sexual orientation: Straight
    Occupation: Activist, Columnist
    Party Affiliation: Republican

    Nationality: United States
    Executive summary: Washington lobbyist, anti-tax crusader

    Former Republican golden boy Grover Norquist is the genius who coerced George H.W. Bush into making the disastrous “Read My Lips: No New Taxes” pledge back in 1988. Relentlessly committed to slashing the size of government in half within 25 years, Norquist until recently wielded substantial influence over GOP fiscal policy. Close friends Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove relied heavily on him for ideas to reduce the federal budget. (Not bad for a guy who’s never held elected office.) But that all changed after September 11th.

    The son of a city tax assessor, young Grover read the classic work Masters of Deceit by J. Edgar Hoover at age eleven, which instilled a lifelong hatred of Communism. Somehow or other, along the way he also managed to become a major Janis Joplin fan, calling her oeuvre “the high point of Western civilization.” He keeps a poster of her in his office, along with a bunch of South Park crap.

    Over the years, Norquist became increasingly conservative, and eventually decided that the most troubling problem facing America is the gargantuan size of its government. Quite rightly, he decided the most effective way to reduce the size of government would be to cut off its sources of revenue (aka taxes). And he resolved to launch a permanent tax revolt. So in 1986 Norquist founded the organization Americans for Tax Reform, which is categorically opposed to any increase in taxation and lobbies Congress hard for an endless series of tax cuts — at least one per year.

    Of course, cutting the size of the government in half is going to take some belt-tightening. According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:

    In Norquist’s vision, America a couple of decades from now will be a place in which elderly people make up a disproportionate share of the poor, as they did before Social Security. It will also be a country in which even middle-class elderly Americans are, in many cases, unable to afford expensive medical procedures or prescription drugs and in which poor Americans generally go without even basic health care. And it may well be a place in which only those who can afford expensive private schools can give their children a decent education.
    Nevertheless, Grover brings a messianic zeal to the cause. During an interview on the National Public Radio show Fresh Air, Norquist claimed that the estate tax is just as immoral as genocide, because both target only a minority of the population:

    NORQUIST: That’s the morality of the Holocaust. “Well, it’s only a small percentage,” you know. “I mean, it’s not you, it’s somebody else.” [...]
    TERRY GROSS: Excuse me. Excuse me one second. Did you just —
    NORQUIST: Yeah?
    TERRY GROSS: — compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?
    NORQUIST: No, the morality that says it’s OK to do something to do a group because they’re a small percentage of the population is the morality that says that the Holocaust is OK because they didn’t target everybody, just a small percentage. What are you worried about? It’s not you. It’s not you. It’s them. And arguing that it’s OK to loot some group because it’s them, or kill some group because it’s them and because it’s a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. [...]
    TERRY GROSS: So you see taxes as being the way they are now terrible discrimination against the wealthy comparable to the kind of discrimination of, say, the Holocaust?
    NORQUIST: Well, what you pick — you can use different rhetoric or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say, ‘Don’t let this bother you; I’m only doing it’ — I, the government. The government is only doing it to a small percentage of the population. That is very wrong. And it’s immoral. They should treat everybody the same. They shouldn’t be shooting anyone, and they shouldn’t be taking half of anybody’s income or wealth when they die.

    Lately, Grover Norquist no longer garners the same respect out of Washington that he used to. Not for that insane Holocaust metaphor, but because of a lobbying firm he founded a few years back. The Islamic Institute had been working to promote policies which would help Arab causes. But then two passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Center, and suddenly nobody in the government could even pretend to care anymore about what the Arabs want.

    Incidentally, Grover’s main hobby since the mid-’90s seems to have been the lionization of former President Ronald Reagan. Years before Reagan’s death, Norquist started championing things like replacing the portrait of Alexander Hamilton with Reagan’s on the $10 bill, or at least shoving Franklin D. Roosevelt off the dime. These are not idle notions. In 1997 Norquist launched the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, a group whose purpose is to convince the government to spend millions of taxpayer dollars (ironically) on things like a Ronald Reagan memorial monument in Washington, DC.

    After Reagan finally died in 2004, Norquist kicked it into overdrive. In a June 2004 appearance on CNN’s Inside Politics, Grover told host Judy Woodruff: “Alexander Hamilton has been on the $10 since 1928, he’s been well honored by the country, he was a great secretary of the treasury. But of all the people on the currency, the only one who isn’t a President.” Which kind of hurt his credibility, because you’d think that Norquist would be aware that Benjamin Franklin — whose face is on the $100 bill — was never President. That’s the kind of assertion you’d maybe want to doublecheck before going on national television. And it’s not like it would require a team of researchers.

    Father: Warren Norquist (Vice President, Polaroid)
    Mother: Carol Norquist (city tax assessor)
    Wife: Samah Alrayyes (m. 2-Apr-2005)

    High School: Weston High School, Weston, MA
    University: BA Economics, Harvard University (1978)
    University: MBA, Harvard Business School (1981)

    The American Spectator Columnist
    Microsoft Washington lobbyist
    African American Republican Leadership Council Advisory Panel
    American Conservative Union Board of Directors
    American Enterprise Institute Columnist for the AEI Newsletter
    Americans for Tax Reform President and Founder
    America’s Future Foundation Executive Council
    Bush-Cheney ‘04
    Citizens for America
    College Republicans
    The Constitution Project Liberty and Security Initiative
    Council for National Policy
    Council on Foreign Relations
    The Heritage Foundation Helped draft the 1994 “Contract with America”
    Islamic Institute President and Founder
    National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters
    National Rifle Association Life Member, sits on the Board of Directors
    National Taxpayers Union Executive Director (1981-83)
    Nevada Policy Research Institute Board of Advisors
    TheVanguard.Org Board of Advisors
    The Harvard Crimson
    Abramoff Scandal
    Swiss Ancestry

    http://www.nndb.com/people/482/000049335/


  30. Keith H. says:

    Here’s the way I can’t help but see it.
    If george supports it, there’s something damn wrong with it.


  31. Game of Life says:

    Does the idiot know how to write in cursive?


  32. ElBruce says:

    Onoes, Grover issued his veto, what will we ever do?

    Move along, folks.


  33. ctalk says:

    How evil do you have to be to want to “break unions”. You need unions to protect the working/middle class. Without a middle class this country might as well call itself Third World.


  34. Wayne A. Schneider says:

    Could someone explain to me what people like Norquist mean, specifically, when they speak of the “size” of government? Does the word “size” refer to the number of employees, the number of federal agencies of any sort, or the amount of money they spend? All of these have gone way up in the last eight years, but which one in particular is Norquist upset about?


  35. chortik says:

    Maybe if the american car manufacturers were more competitive in the market place we wouldn’t need to bail them out. No one is talking about 10000s of laid-off employees of financial service companies… Even then, they got the bailout, but still there is significant restructuring in the industry, so why not the automakers? That is why not let the fail and restructure?


  36. WillowOrchid says:

    This awful person is given legitimacy and credence by buffoons and criminals such as O’Riley, Hannity, and all the Murdoch Gang and Murdoch Wannabes’ at CNBC, ABC and all the other Big Media. Time to stop watching these stations.


  37. Jackie says:

    Grover is so sad he had to pay a woman from Pakistan to marry him because even with alot of stolen money no American woman would have him. Smart girl as she can now do business in the US with the company she and her Father own. Bush really can’t read even little words so his letter was tossed.


  38. IBTunion4obama says:

    Also note that Norquist and other Republicans want to crush and get rid of the middle class. They want to establish a Fascist society in which the corporations and few CEOs dictate policy of all subjects. We’re transforming into a plutocracy, thanks to these disaster capitalists and neo-Fascists at the top.


  39. RUCerious says:

    If I were a muppet with the same name as this wukfad, I’d change it to something like revorG.


  40. questioneverything says:

    Norquist could very well be indicted and convicted for tax fraud. Could somebody get on that? Or will every high level felon in Bushco be excused from any wongdoing? I think if we go along to get along we will find ourselves 2 years from now in a deeper pile. And forever more. You cannot deal with the fascists in our midst and not prosecute. Obama will not even get his choice for AG confirmed. Mark my words. The only way to rid ourselves of these people is through prosecution. Some do not need understanding–they need jail. Do we have laws or Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?


  41. EugeneDebs says:

    Tracy__5 Says:

    The UAW took huge wage concessions LAST contract.


  42. EugeneDebs says:

    Starting UAW wages are about 14.50 an hour. If they worked for FREE it wouldnt drop the price of a car more than 3 grand. The problem is NOT the UAW


  43. joe cantwell says:

    Tracy__5,

    interested in a really

    challenging job?

    *

    good luck.

    ^


  44. marlow says:

  45. sectionop92 says:

    Did Grover have some stock in Toyota, Nissan or Mercedes he was planning on seeing skyrocket if any of the Big 3 went under?

    My crystal ball says: Hell Yes!

    The new way to spell traitor isn’t Grover, it’s Ameritrade. Open up your laptop, Nordy! Lets see you sellout the American worker for how much now?


  46. pete says:

    First point: If Grover wanted Chimpy to get the message he should have scribbled it in crayon with a couple duckies and bunnies. Or a goat.

    Second point: Our stupid troll, defying all predictions, keeps getting stupider.


  47. SaraBeth says:

    Of course, Norquist has never been fond of helping out American workers; he has professed a desire to “crush labor as a political entity” and ultimately “break unions.”

    That’s exactly what this bail out will do….break the Unions…


  48. dbadass says:

    This bailout….translation: we as an American industry can’t compete with the other car makers, but please, please, save our overpaid asses.

    —–

    So Tracy_5, I can’t help but notice that you have been silent as to my tax dollars being employed to provide bonuses to CEO’s and higher ups across the range of financials who have nursed upton the teat of 700 billion. Is it just the working class you scorn?


  49. Xisithrus says:

    Lowering wages will not allow the companies to survive as the middle lower classes are 70% of the GDP.

    And BTW, isnt forming a labor union, in effect, persuing a free market ideology?

    Norquist, if he looks, is actually part of a union, or group, a club of like minded people, just as a union is.

    In fact, union busting is something done in communist socialist countries by owners of sweatshops.

    Norquist, then, is promoting sweatshops and slave labor.


  50. Cal Malenky says:

    Grover. Always mature in his well thought-out utterances.
    He thinks that progressive taxation is comparable to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews because tax rates are higher for higher incomes.
    And, Xisithrus, he does believe in sweatshops. Norquist was in cahoots with Abramoff and DeLay when they were scamming the American consumer with apparel sweatshop-made in Saipan and calling it American-made.


  51. Uosdwis says:

    Ironically, money is just handed to the Americans for Tax Reform group. They don’t actually “work,” produce any products, or do anything except hold a weekly meeting to squawk “no taxes!”


  52. realpatriot says:

    Norquist spouting the same tired old message…
    Less Gov’t , No more Taxes, and strong defense…
    Equals…..
    No oversight
    Only million/billionaire/corporation tax beaks
    and to paraphrase rumsfeld……”fight with the army you have…you don’t need any stinkin armor”

    Why haven’t these people been riddin out of town on a rail?



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