Americans for Tax Reform Are Wrong

Grover Norquist of the Americans for Tax Reform has stated that Fred is the worst of the Republican candidates on taxes. This is being reported by Ronald Kessler at Newsmax.

This borders on libelous, though it is really just litmus testing your way into an opinion.

GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have both promised not to raise taxes - Romney even signing an ATR pledge not to raise the marginal tax rate. Thompson, on the other hand, has not signed the pledge and has said high-income Medicare beneficiaries may have to pay more for coverage.

“Thompson didn’t sign the pledge as a senator, and he has no track record of being any good on taxes,” Norquist says. “He won’t say no to tax hikes, and in this town, that means you will say yes to tax increases.

Let's just start with the failure in logic: not signing a pledge does not mean that you are NOT saying no to a tax hike--it certainly does not mean that you are saying yes to a tax increase. In fact, Fred has praised the effects of the Bush tax cuts. To the best of my knowledge, he is the only one calling for additional tax cuts--specifically on corporate tax rates. One thing that Fred has called for is tax reform. If you "reform" taxes, you will end up lowering some taxes and raising others (e.g. if you implement the "fair tax" you will lower income taxes, but raise sales taxes). Signing a no-new-tax pledge gives your opponent something to attack you with.

I call this a problem with litmus testing because what they have done is say that because he doesn't necessarily support their particular "pledge" that he is aligned with their enemies. It falls into the "have you quit beating your wife?" type of question.

The next topic is Social Security, which Norquist similarly botches:

Besides the possibility of raising taxes, Thompson has called for indexing Social Security benefits to inflation rather than to wages.

Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, has said that pegging Social Security benefits to inflation would preserve the program’s solvency, but could lead to a dramatic cut in benefits.

“It’s about a 25-percent benefit cut by 2040,” Tanner says.

In proposing tax increases to bail out an entitlement program, Thompson is adopting the Democrats’ outmoded solution, Norquist says.

Norquist has sipped the derangement kool-aid here. On Social Security there are ONLY two general routes to fix the problem: 1) reduce benefits or 2) increase taxes. In the reduce benefits category are things like paying out less (reducing the benefits, indexing to inflation, increasing the retirement age, etc.). The increase tax category is either move funding to the general fund or increasing the payroll tax. Fred is proposing one of the reduce benefits options and not one of the tax increase options. Norquist is just dead wrong here.

Norquist then goes on to criticize Fred's work with Campaign Finance Reform, which has nothing to do with tax policy, but is a valid critique. But one that Fred has dealt with already. Norquist also criticizes Fred's tort reform positions, which also has nothing to do with tax policy, but is NOT a valid critique. Fred has answered these questions clearly, which is that MOST of tort reform are in the hands of the States and not the Federal government.

I wish people would quit saying stupid things and use their brains.