Comment by Cameron L. Stewart on Sunday, Jul 13 at 07:14 PM

Grover Norquist stands as one among a long line of Republicans, proving that the phrases "conservative republican" and "intelligent public policy making" in the same sentence are an oxymoron. If you are going to talk about tax reduction you also need to be specific about who benefits the most. Typically, when Republicans say "tax reduction", they mean tax reduction primarily for the wealthy and for large corporations. A gap then emerges between revenues and expenditures and it is made up by passing on huge amounts of debt to future generations. In the process the disparity between rich and poor grows while the numbers of the middle class shrink because the trickle down benefit never emerges. Even George Bush I -who Norquists vilifies- called it for what it is: Voodoo economics. Secondly, the purpose of government is to provide infrastructure that the free market cannot otherwise provide. This includes prudent regulation to prevent free markets from engaging in overspeculation, overproduction, or activity that is otherwise not in the public interest. Instead, Republicans will cut out all infrastructure expenditures, eliminate regulation safeguards to protect the public, trivialize and dumb down the public policy debate, and at the same time increase the Defense budget. Sustainability issues like energy, water, industrial metal supplies, climate change and the environment are off the radar screen because conservatives are too busy talking about guns, abortion, and gay marriage. Charlie did his best to get Grover Norquist to move beyond his one note, tax reduction fundamentalism soap box. But that effort assumed the intellect is there on the part of a conservative to support such a two way conversation. Then, at the end of the conversation, we see that Newt Gingrich is Grover Norquist's hero: "If only the bad guy liberals hadn't shot Newt with so many arrows then he might still be a viable candidate for president". (Sigh!!)