Charlie Rose

Fran6359  09/10/2012 09:26 PM Report

Too much to gripe about with this Nordquist guy. Who gives this guy money? His stubbornness is out of this world and makes him appear like an out of touch grandfather telling me the internet will never take off...

LarryMerriam  09/09/2012 02:55 PM Report

Grover Norquist represents gridlock. His actions bring great harm to America. Those who have signed his pledge live under the threat of his wrath. To learn more about Grover and to add your name to those who have signed the petition to stop him visit www.groverno.com

Miguel_Ruz  09/05/2012 07:47 PM Report

Simply put, Norquist is an extremist and fanatic. He didn't pronounce a word about how Bush, Greenspan and Wall Street, destroyed the economy. No word about the shameful inequality. The guy wants to reduce even more taxes for the richest 1% which captures 23% of the national income. Is that possible?. What are his fundamentals?: just ideology and interests. A mix of ignorance, fanatism and defense of privileges and abuses.

jiminycricket  09/04/2012 09:13 PM Report

Your interview with Grover Norquist (full disclosure: like probably so many people I've never seen him before and was quite surprised to see him out in broad daylight) was interesting and to the point. I especially appreciated the push you made in trying to break through his ...what should I call it? facade? shell? I may be projecting but I noticed some tiny quivers in his mouth that suggested you might have gotten through, especially if you had pushed a bit harder. It seems to me, that push does not have to come to shove if done right. You obviously have the smarts to think, if not outthink, people who depend on ideology, but in my opinion gloves should be taken off.

richard-lipscombe  09/04/2012 08:04 PM Report

Tom Friedman again - really? is this all you're got America - no wonder your society is in steep decline!

Grover Norquist is a well meaning guy and he is right on the need for spending cuts but he is also a danger to American democracy... he is dangerous because he wants to turn REPRESENTATIVES into DELEGATES...

Union members know that delegates do not necessarily represent you...

the whole notion of democracy is that people are elected to make decisions on a complete range of issues - some discussed at time of election and others new as time goes bye - for the whole electorate including those who did not vote for you...

sending DELEGATES to Washington is a very bad idea as national politics has become more and more issues-based and thus less and less about the BIG THINGS...if this trend continues then the real government will be at STATE and LOCAL levels and Washington will become less and less important and relevant...

Norquist is right - revenue has to be restricted if government spending is to be limited and debt is to be reduced...people think government is DEMAND driven but it is actually SUPPLY driven... Professor Laffer may not have been right but he was more right than wrong...

today most if not all 'thinking' republicans would vote for Bill Clinton if they had a choice between him and Barack Obama... they know that Clinton would attack the debt and yet maintain Medicare and the key social safety net provisions...Clinton would be tough on unions in ways that would be good for the public sector...Clinton would have a foreign policy that made sense...Clinton would be able to do 'deals' with the Republicans...perhaps it will be Mrs Clinton in 2016?

cheers, richard.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/04/2012 03:31 PM Report

Charlie, Grover is a BAD mamma-jamma.

When you do your end of the year tribute to those who have died I hope you will also do a recap of those who were put in jail. Perhaps you can use clips from this interview for that purpose.

Here is Bill Moyers (ironically on Monday following you Charlie):

"Norquist had created Americans for Tax Reform, which he turned into the movement’s nerve center. Once a week, Congressional staff, party activists, and rightwing think tankers held strategy sessions in his office. It was Norquist who concocted a grand scheme to turn Washington into a Republican company town by making sure only Republicans were hired as lobbyists and lobbyists contributed only to Republicans. He dubbed it The K Street project, after the lobbyists’ main drag downtown.

It paved the way for Jack Abramoff. “What the Republicans need,” said Norquist, “is fifty Jack Abramoff’s.” “Then this becomes a different town.”

"But no one was more indispensable to Abramoff than Norquist."

MICHAEL WALLER: If it wasn’t for his relation with Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff would never have been able to become the super lobbyist that he came. And to charge the huge rates that he charged because he had this unique relationship with certain Republican leaders.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/ralph-reed-from-purgatory-to-power/

Jail Grover, JAIL (OK, prison.)

REMant  09/04/2012 01:45 PM Report

Mr Friedman may want want to re-examine his socialism-capitalism distinction WRT to healthcare. And Lincoln's management style might give a clue to Obama's.

To Mr Norquist I have to comment that, of course, Reagan DIDN'T keep spending from spiraling out of control, not only following the trail blazed by other war presidents - Lincoln, Wilson and FDR - while at the same time decrying the size of govt, but also listening to such as Jude Wanniski, who, like Coolidge, touted the inflationary pyramid scheme which led to the Depression. We've since heard the latter suggested by many others, most recently, Romney's Bain associate Edward Conrad. Those who defend the idea that in this way the wealthy provide employment for the poor forget the origin lies in bank fraud, and constantly flirts with bankruptcy, because it reduces demand and increases costs unless productivity makes it up or fresh sources are found to be exploited. It is fair to call this Social Darwinist.

The current issue of Rolling Stone contains two articles of interest in this regard, one by Matt Taibbi (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capi tal-20120829) which explains Bain Capital's LBO operations, and the other by Tim Dickinson (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-federal-bailout-that-saved-mitt-romney-20120829) which details how Romney stuck the FDIC with the bill for saving Bain & Co when in it got trouble because of them.

The irony is that critical to LBOs are the insurance programs and tax write-offs, designed to ameliorate its effects. That's why honestly compassionate ppl shouldn't anymore consider voting Democrat than Republican and why the Fed has to be classed as Public Enemy No. 1.

The Fed attempts to leverage the money supply in the same way as an LBO, and if Mr Norquist is really interested in limiting govt, he might want to give a little attention to it as well, because this is also how the govt is able to avoid increasing taxes and up-or-down budget votes.

Bernanke argued last week that the "lost decade" was not proof our problems are structural requiring any attention of the sort the president and more sober economists are talking about; that it's all monetary, and promised another explosion of monetary debt at some time in the near future. Perhaps just after a Romney election reduces the size of govt, or Congress again puts off the day of reckoning. It would seem just jawboning in an attempt to hold things together until the end of the year. Even if it isn't structural it's certainly questionable whether the remedy is more money.

It is useful to compare this kind of thinking with the way the Civil War was financed, since it has long been a poster boy for inflationists and Keynesians like him.

When the Civil War began the Treasury was empty, trade was stalled, no one wanted to increase taxes, and no one would lend to the new admin except at high interest, a situation made worse by battlefield losses and McClellan's dilatoriness. Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who was both a Jacksonian hard money man, and as a Free Soiler, an ardent abolitionist, at first simply extorted the loans: "I was obliged to be very firm, and to say, 'Gentlemen, I am sure you wish to do all you can. I hope you will find that you can take the loans required on terms which can be admitted. If not, I must go back to Washington and issue notes for circulation; for gentlemen, the war must go on until this rebellion is put down, if we have to out paper until it takes $1000 to buy a breakfast.'" Prompted by the hoarding of specie, and under continued duress, the govt issued the fiat currency known as the Greenbacks, which began depreciating as the Continentals had in the Revolution. Lincoln, who had studied money and banking issues, was well aware that as he said in his 1862 address to Congress: "Fluctuations in the value of currency are always injurious, and, to reduce these fluctuations to the lowest possible point will always be a leading purpose in wise legislation. Convertibility -- prompt and certain convertibility into coin - is generally acknowledged to be the best and surest safeguard against them,..." So The National Banking Act of 1863 chartered banks which bought govt bonds, issued in return redeemable notes with the govt keeping a 10% seignorage. It was one of the few bills for which Lincoln twisted arms, and it only passed when bankers in New York, Phila and Boston were bought off (causing a lot of problems later on). In this way ordinary citizens were allowed to support the war effort if they chose, but aside from the fact that competing state-chartered banknotes were taxed out of existence (sound familiar?), it was an honest and arguably Constitutional way of going about things, (since the money was still coin and the notes, bills of credit), if the banks were still banks. They were, however, regulated by the new office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a function the states has hitherto performed spottily. Gold "speculation" tho became an object of opprobrium among the patriots, and attempts were made to suppress it. However, an 1864 act to that effect had to be repealed in just two weeks, and the govt to had to be content to defend its paper by selling gold itself.

Federal Reserve notes are the heirs of the Greenbacks - fiat currency - secured only by the ability of the central bank to buy up securities (usually govt bonds) with them, including those already held by itself, and the prohibition of the use of gold or other money. Unlike the National Bank notes they are the liability of the US not the individual banks. As with an LBO, the system is coercive, whether the management is complicit or not. They are arguably unconstitutional because the Constitution considers only coin to be money and avoids giving the Congress the power to declare bills of credit legal tender, and this was the understanding before the Fed was created. The Supreme Court in fact struck down the Greenback's legal tender status after Chase was made Chief Justice until Pres Grant appointed two justices which reversed this decision. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Tender_Cases)

But then there is the economic result. Civil War inflation is put at 70-80%, about the same as in World Wars 1 and 2. And while the decision to retire the Greenbacks as quickly as possible through consumption taxes produced deflation, per capita output grew more strongly from 1870 to 1890 than from 1840 to 1860, (which were in fact years of considerable industrialization), and there's no reason to suppose the war had any effect in that, as growth declined in the 1860s with the loss of the South as a market. Despite much boasting, the Whig agenda of land grants and tariffs passed when the South seceded cannot account for it, nor emancipation, as these have been found either negligible or negative. If anything post Civil War growth was due to increased saving forced by borrowing and its repayment which aggregated capital for investment.

I think the workfare thing has been blown out of proportion, and no less than Milton Friedman thought welfare should be welfare, not some sort of client-saving bureaucracy. If Mr Norquist can figure out some way of getting ppl employed without also employing a bunch of overseers, I'm sure his idea would be snapped up by governors in both parties, who do have to balance their budgets.

I also apparently need to point out to him that while the Constitution is limited, the states are not in most, if also a controverted number of respects, except that the Constitution guarantees their people a republican form, whatever that means.