The Norquist Pledge and Losing the Future: An Open Letter to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Dear Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:
I am a Democrat, a strong supporter of President Obama, and a contributor to Democratic Party campaign finances, and to the President’s re-election. I am also dismayed by the lack of interest in, or the refusal of the Democratic Party, to make Grover Norquist and his Pledge that most Republicans in Congress have signed, a major issue in the up-coming Presidential election, and as part of the referendum on the Republican Party.
Norquist was interviewed on Sixty Minutes on November 20, 2011, reveling in the power he has against Republicans in Congress and against the Congress itself. He claimed that Republicans signing the Pledge did not endow him with personal power. The Pledge, he said to the moderator, Steve Kroft, reflected the power of the constituencies that vote Republicans into office and whom he more or less “represented.” Steve Kroft did not buy that explanation fully, and was able to get Norquist to reveal the power he has, not just with Republicans in the House and Senate, who have signed the Pledge, but also with the constituencies that voted for them in Congressional districts and at the state level for U.S. Senators.
Norquist said plainly that if a Republican signed the Pledge, his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, and other people, organizations, and financial resources he did not name, could be called upon by him and his organization to help that person get elected. If the Pledge was not signed, all of these elements would be mobilized to defeat a Republican seeking office. If a Republican signed the Pledge, and then reneged on it as a member of Congress, Norquist said forces would be mobilized that, among other things, would engage in a massive “educational campaign” against the Representative or Senator to defeat that person in the next election. This is the great fear that the Republicans in Congress have. They are able to see that it is not just Norquist that they are up against. He is the “point man” for the corporate elements that wield great power over the Republican Party. They fear the great wealth and power that such entities would use against them. This is the big picture that Democrats do not seem to see, or for whatever reason, do not want to deal with.
I have heard Democrats, including the President, complain about Grover Norquist and the Pledge. The President and others have even accused Republicans of violating their oath of office in signing the Pledge. But I have yet to hear the President or any Democrat in Congress, or progressive political commentators on television or radio who champion the Democratic Party and its objectives, take the matter any further than this. There is never any explanation of what they are violating, when it is said that they are violating their oath of office. What is the oath? TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION! But that is never said, nor is there ever an explanation as to how the Constitution is being violated.
Republican Pledge-signers do this in two ways. Article 1, SECTION 8 READS: “The Congress shall have the power 1. To lay and collect taxes.” The Norquist Pldedge says in effect that Republicans in Congress are never to raise taxes under any circumstances. THIS IS A CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION!
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress, the only branch of the national government established, could not raise taxes. The second group of Founding Fathers was decidedly in favor of changing this situation. They did so, by saying in the new Constitution that Congress would be able to raise taxes to acquire revenue for national government operations. It even enabled the Congress to raise revenue by imposing “duties, imposts, excises,” and by being permitted, under point 2: “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
The Founding Fathers made levying and collecting taxes the very first duty of Congress and the primary way it was to raise revenue for the government. No Republican is permitted to do that who signs the Pledge. Thus, he or she is violating their oath of office and the Constitution by not upholding a basic provision of the document.
There is another way the Constitution is violated by Republicans who sign the Pledge. To agree that they will never raise taxes as members of Congress, they are, in effect, amending the Constitution, specifically Article V that outlines the procedure for amending the document. It takes two forms. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress can pass an amendment to the Constitution that would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. The second procedure says that two-thirds of the states “shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which…”.shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as parts of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.”
Grover Norquist has and continues to show that he does not give two licks about the constitutional authorization to raise tax revenues or about the authorized ways to amend that document. And he wants Republicans not to care about these matters, and he has been successful in getting compliance from them. He said to Steve Kroft in the 60 Minute interview, and rather proudly, that he regarded the Republican Party to be a “brand name,” and that he had been working hard for years to help it achieve this status. Kroft said to him that this was engaging in “merchandising” with respect to the Republican Party, and Norquist gleefully agreed. He said the merchandising of the Republican Party gives it the brand name of “the Party that will not raise taxes.”
This is Norquist admitting, but not willing to say so, or perhaps not even having an understanding of what he is admitting to with his comments, that he is not interested in the Republican Party “governing.” He sees the Republican Party functioning in Congress having the primary, if not sole purpose, of protecting and advancing the wealth of the rich and their corporations. Not raising taxes or lowering taxes on both, which he also favors, are additional means to help augment their great wealth.
But there is something else that Norquist, and those he works for, are also saying that has another meaning and consequences when Republicans sign the Pledge not to raise taxes in Congress: it is a way to restrict or eliminate using tax revenues to help lower the national deficit and national debt. Norquist and his backers want the national debt and deficit reduced by cutting spending, i.e. cutting social programs. That interest was demonstrated over the recent debt ceiling and deficit reduction crisis, when Republicans in Congress refused President Obama’s plan to have a balanced approach of revenues and cutting social programs to deal with the national debt.
The Republican Party, with Tea Party elements dominating it, literally held the United States economy hostage, to get a big reduction in government spending on social programs. Democrats could be heard vociferously criticizing the Republicans for hostage-taking. But again, they did not take their argument beyond a simple criticism, or sound bite comments about the Republicans engaging in hostage-taking, or brinkmanship politics.
Engaging in these activities, the Republicans are again showing that they are not interested in governance. They have a two-prong agenda that they are interested in that overlap and reinforce each other. They want to increase the wealth of the rich and their corporations, by not raising taxes on them, and by lowering taxes on both. And the Republicans are interested in cutting social programs, to be able to shift public money upwards to the rich and their corporations, and having some social programs like social security privatized. In short, putting social programs on the market, which takes social programs from Blacks and other minorities and from the poor, a move that many Republicans, especially southern White Republicans, want to see. This all feeds the Republican ideological spiel about “small government” and “limited government.”
If the Republicans gain the White House and acquire a majority in the House and Senate, they will move to destroy the basic social contract that the American¬ government has had with the American people since the 1930s: that of the government helping the middle class, and those lower on the social-economic scale, and helping elements of them to become middle class. It seems to me that the Democrats do not show enough fear of this “historical undoing,”- - this great loss to America’s future! One does not see them nor the so-called professional progressives in their ranks taking this case to the American people to make them aware of it, and afraid of those seeking to promote it. As usual, the Democrats of various stripes, show a lack of willingness to punch the Republicans like they take delight in punching Democrats. But the stakes are high- - nothing more or less than the basic social compact and the national government’s role in helping to promote it, and a future with these features in it.
But there is also something else at stake, and that is governance, and the national government being able to function in a way to govern. So we are back to Grover Norquist’s Pledge and all that is involved in it. Since this Pledge says that Republicans will not seek tax revenues, this then means that Republicans will oppose that idea, and seek to promote only lowering taxes and program cuts. The Democrats in turn will oppose such cuts, and this will then lead to a log-jam, a gridlock in politics and government in Washington D.C. and Republicans turning to hostage-taking and brinkmanship to try to get their way.
But this behavior won’t be just for this year, or again four years from now. This is what the Republican Party is offering as a permanent reality for the national government, as long as the Norquist Pledge stays in place and Republicans honor it, and a large electorate is supportive- - even against its own interest. Norquist, as he showed in his interview with Steve Kroft, takes great delight in gridlock, and dysfunctional government, using both as a threat to try to hold the President, the Democratic Party, and the Congress hostage, as well as the economy and the country’s credit rating.
The Democrats abet all of these pejorative objectives, because they won’t make it clear to the American people just how dangerous and damaging to the American government and political life the Norquist Pledge is. And it is able to be this formidable, because Republicans have let themselves be put in a place where they need to have their signature on the Pledge to get elected and to hold office. It is also formidable, because it has the Republicans willing to trample on the Constitution, which they are willing to do to get elected or to hold office.
But they are not the only ones willing to do this. Corporate elements are willing to do it, and so are a mass of Republican voters. The latter are propagandized heavily about the Republican Party being the Party that will not raise taxes. When the Republican electorate vote for this, they are at the same time voting for the Pledge, and, thus, are in effect accepting the violation of the oaths of office of the people they elect, and the two violations of the Constitution. Thus, gridlock, hostage-taking, and dysfunctional government is being rooted in the political thinking of a large segment of the American electorate. And this segment can thwart the functioning of the American government. It is not enlightened about what it is doing. And one would not expect Norquist, the Americans for Tax Reform, and the rich and their corporations to enlighten them of the great travesty in which they are engaged. And that also works against them, because tax revenues would help them, too.
But the Democrats are the real worrisome element here, because they make no effort to enlighten these constituencies, or any other voting element about these dire situations facing the country. They don’t see the grave threat to positive government, or the social programs, and the future of both in America. The fact that they can only talk superficially about Grover Norquist and his Pledge, when they deal with these matters at all, shows that they do not have a significant grasp of the situation- - or don’t want to have such a grasp; or perhaps, are even afraid to deal with the matter.
One hears talk about the President and the Democrats making the election of 2012 an election of choice between two different approaches to governing and about the direction the country should take. The Republicans show that their interest is fundamentally to increase the power and wealth of the rich and their institutions, end or decimate social programs, and create great wealth disparity. The Democrats could augment their efforts to draw a contrast between themselves and the Republicans by making the American people aware of the Norquist Pledge and its ominous consequences to government and the country, to “winning the future” of America, and the future of the “American Dream” for Americans. The Norquist Pledge strongly drives the Republicans to be as different as they are from Democrats, and what makes them the threat that they are to these things.
But the Democratic message has to go beyond the dangers for 2012. They have to show that the Norquist Pledge honored by Republicans elected to Congress, and by a sizable electorate offers America a future of continuous threats to the basic social contract, of gridlock government, of effective governance, and a future that severely diminishes the middle class and the opportunities for others to become a part of that class. Thus far, the Democrats and the professional progressives as well, have shown no backbone for this much larger fight- - indeed, haven’t shown that they even understand what the larger fight is. So one has to ask the question: “When will the Democrats and the professional progressives wake up and smell the bacon?” If this does not occur during the 2012 Presidential election, when polls say a large majority of Americans are in favor of taxing the rich, and would likely be against the Norquist Pledge if they understood it and its consequences, it may well be an awakening that will occur too late!
P.S.
It seems to me that four things can be said about Romney to use against him should he become the Republican Presidential candidate. First, he supports the Norquist Pledge even though he would never sign it. Second, he is incredibly arrogant and condescending. Third, he does not know who he is, which some in the Party have said, but not often or loud enough.
There is a video showing Romney castigating John Kerry when he ran for President in 2004, saying that Kerry was contradictory, inconsistent, and a “flip-flopper,” and that such a person should not be elected President! Romney did not see that he was actually talking about himself, that he was projecting his own character flaws onto Kerry. And he stills shows ignorance of his own character deficiencies. He has said more than once during his present bid for the White House that he is consistent in his views and that he exhibits more constancy in his thinking than anyone he knows. Political analysts continue making the opposite judgment about him and have been doing so for years. Clearly, Romney does not know who he is. A number of the ads against Romney could include: “Who is Mitt Romney. Does anyone know? Does Romney know?”
The fourth thing to be said about Mitt Romney in keeping with the theme that he does not know who he is, that he is not a “venture capitalist,” as he likes to say, or an “investment capitalist,” as he also likes to say, but is rather a PREDATOR CAPITALIST. Bain Capital that he helped to establish and worked at as a consultant and then as CEO, sought out and bought failing or failed corporations, cut them into pieces, sold off pieces for profit, and in the process eliminated jobs, or laid off employees, or transferred jobs out of the country. Bain would also buy a failing enterprise, send it into bankruptcy, restructure it, and sell it for profit. Or Bain would buy the assets of an enterprise and reject the employees and their union contract, terminating both. It would then allow the terminated employees to apply for jobs at the same enterprise, but at reduced wages, higher healthcare costs to themselves, little or no other benefits, and no pensions. Romney and Bain Capital were predators in the American economy, overwhelmingly interested in creating wealth for themselves, rather than creating jobs for people.
In opposing regulations on corporations, Romney is in effect endorsing predatory behavior by corporations on the market as a matter of course. This is what he really means by “free enterprise” or “free market.” And his ignorance or feigned ignorance about the government’s relationship to the American economy, past and present, should be called out. As economist Joel Magnuson wrote in Mindful Economics How the U.S. Economy Works: “Government has always played a central role in building capitalist systems, and capitalism could not have come into existence without it…laissez faire ideology aside, it was not that class of capitalist entrepreneurs, but government that shaped the development of the modern capitalist system” (pp. 111-112).
Sincerely Yours,
Dr. William D. Wright
Professor Emeritus of American and Black History
Southern Connecticut State University