{"id":185286,"date":"2011-08-09T17:53:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T22:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/08\/09\/a-phant-disavows-norquist\/"},"modified":"2011-08-09T17:53:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T22:53:00","slug":"a-phant-disavows-norquist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/08\/09\/a-phant-disavows-norquist\/","title":{"rendered":"A ‘Phant Disavows Norquist"},"content":{"rendered":"

If he is the only ‘Phant to repudiate his “no taxes of any kind” pledge to Grover Norquist, he’s toast, but if he is the first of a few, i.e. double digits, he becomes a a leader of some sort of wing of the Congressional Republicans<\/p>\n

Still, it’s a gutsy move<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In answer to one question, the 1st District Republican congressman revealed he informed Grover Norquist and his anti-tax organization he no longer is committed to that organization’s pledge to oppose any form of tax increases.<\/p>\n

“I did sign that pledge when I was first running” for the House in 2004, Fortenberry said. “I no longer sign any pledges.”<\/p>\n

A pledge “restrains your ability to think creatively,” he said, noting Norquist attempts to interpret and define what is considered a tax increase.<\/p>\n

“I informed the organization I don’t consider (the earlier pledge) binding,” Fortenberry said. “I don’t care to be associated with it. It’s too constraining.”<\/p>\n

Fortenberry said he remains committed to reducing federal spending, but suggested an openness to tax reform.<\/p>\n

“We have a broken tax code that is skewed to the wealthy and corporations (who) know how to move capital around,” he said.<\/p>\n

Tax reform could close loopholes and perhaps lower tax rates, Fortenberry said, and the result might be more revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not only is he saying that taxes are on the table, but he’s talking about how fat cats game the system.<\/p>\n

Note that this from a Republican, from Nebraska<\/b>.<\/p>\n

I don’t expect sanity to break out in the Republican party, but if this is the first step toward Grover Norquist becoming irrelevant, it’s a good step, assuming that he is not replaced by someone even more evil and crazy.*<\/sup><\/p>\n

H\/t Think Progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*<\/sup>Considering the history of the Republican Party, which makes me yearn for the intellect, liberalism, and moral rectitude<\/b> of Richard Nixon, I would say that the chance of him being replaced by someone more evil are pretty good <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If he is the only ‘Phant to repudiate his “no taxes of any kind” pledge to Grover Norquist, he’s toast, but if he is the first of a few, i.e. double digits, he becomes a a leader of some sort of wing of the Congressional Republicans Still, it’s a gutsy move: In answer to one …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1038,978,983],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-politics","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}