Grover Norquist: Republicans Could Take Back Congress

Ronald Kessler

Republicans may be poised to retake Congress in 2008 because the Democrats are "over-reaching," Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells NewsMax.

Few people know as much about what is going on in Washington as Norquist. The White House and members of Congress trust him with their secrets. As outlined in the NewsMax article Washington's Big Secret, Norquist's Wednesday morning meetings of conservatives draw presidential candidates, key members of Congress, and White House aides like Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

"I would argue that the best news for the Republicans is that 2007 and 2008 are looking like 1993 and 1994," Norquist told me over breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel, referring to the Republican takeover of Congress that took effect in January 1995. Previously, Democrats had controlled Congress for 40 years.

"The Democrats are overreaching on taxes, on spending, and general left-wing impulses," Norquist says. "Just as back then, there was the Hush-Rush Bill," referring to Rush Limbaugh. "Now there's the Fairness Doctrine. It's the same thing. As back then, the Democrats are raising gun control as an issue."

In fact, says Norquist, "The Democrats are doing something to irritate all of the parts of the modern conservative movement, just as they did in 1993 and 1994."

To a degree, the Iraq war obscures the comparison.

"The war gives the left an energy that they didn't have in 1993 and 1994," Norquist says. "There was nothing back then like the anti-war movement, which energized people."

Today, Norquist says, "You have an unease among a lot of non-political people, but the real cost of Iraq is not even so much that unease as the drowning out of other issues. We can't run against the Democrats — calling them the party that wants to raise taxes — if the president can only talk about Iraq."

Figures released by the White House show that in 2007, the average taxpayer will pay $2,216 less in federal taxes than he or she would have paid prior to President Bush's tax cuts. For 27 million small business owners, the average reduction will be $4,712.

At the same time, the deficit has been reduced from $413 billion in 2004 to $248 billion in 2006. The projected deficit for 2007 is $205 billion.

Norquist notes that while Bush occasionally talks about his record of tax-cutting, the press would rather write about Iraq. That could change when Bush starts vetoing bills that will increase spending beyond his proposed budget.

Currently, the Democrat-controlled Congress wants to spend $205 billion more than the president does.

"Now the White House says they're going to be tough on vetoing," Norquist says. "So we could, in the next 12 months, have this huge fight on taxes and spending and regulations and labor union changes, driven by the White House, which could save the White House for the Republicans and bring at least the House back to Republican control. That is entirely possible. But Iraq needs to be in the rear view mirror, not in the windshield. And the president needs to be able to credibly talk about these other issues."

Norquist notes that another bright spot is the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which takes effect in January. The law allows employers to create 401k plans that automatically enroll their employees unless they opt out. Unless an employee instructs otherwise, the plan decides how much the employee should invest and automatically deducts that amount from paychecks.

Very few employees are expected to opt out. With traditional 401k plans, employees who want to participate have to opt in.

"By going from opt-in to opt-out, an additional 16 million people will have pensions and be in the stock market by January," Norquist says. "So there'll be this huge jump in the number of people who own shares of stock."

As a result of these and other changes, Norquist says, "I think that part of Bush's legacy will be the growth of the investor class and a greater ownership society. He needs to focus more on that."