Grover Norquist Attacks Vern Buchanan

Vern Buchanan is finding out what it is like to get on Grover Norquist's bad side.

“When Buchanan voted for the tax increase, he voted for the first tax increase in 13 years,” Norquist said.

Norquist is one of the most powerful conservatives in America. He runs Americans for Tax Reform and sits on the board of the NRA. Norquist is also a member of the powerful Council for National Policy. Buchanan has cause for concern. I'm gonna sit back with popcorn and watch the fireworks explode.

Norquist is famous for comparing the morality of the estate tax to the holocaust.

Grover Norquist: Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that -- you're right, there's an exemption for -- I don't know -- maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax.

I mean, 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.'

Norquist got into controversy for his ties with Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed.

The complaint alleges that Norquist used either or both ATR and ATR Foundation as commercial enterprises by laundering money derived from Indian casino clients of former lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff. The casinos made contributions to ATR, which then skimmed a fee off the top before passing the money on to former Christian activist Ralph Reed and other anti-gambling activists. In this way, Norquist, Reed and Abramoff were able to disguise the fact that the money used to fund anti-gambling activities was generated through Indian gambling. The point of the anti-gambling campaigns was to prevent competition to the Indian casinos.

Norquist has never met a tax he likes. He is even against a national sales tax. Conservatives by and large love the idea. Norquist is as far to the right fringes as Rallph Nader is to the left. Norquist brags of the two working together. Unfortunately, not in the best interests of progressives.