LITTLE ROCK — The message for Republican candidates for the state House of Representatives is that they need to rush out and sign that pledge to oppose tax increases.
That’s if they want out-of-state campaign money from the usual and rich right-wing suspects.
This admonition came in a mass email disclosed by Talk Business and sent by state Rep. John Burris of Harrison, former House minority leader and now the House GOP’s campaign chairman.
The surprising thing is that there are Republican candidates who haven’t yet signed the pledge and need prodding.
It’s now a routine rite of passage for GOP candidates at all levels. They must forgo any
tax-increase options, as well as any individual thinking, should they get elected to office.
They must polarize themselves preemptively by signing this oath.
This pledge has become ruling Republican creed and a requirement to escape a GOP primary since it was cooked up by Grover Norquist. He’s a pugnacious lobbyist and conservative activist, formerly with the rabidly right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who heads a group he calls Americans for Tax Reform.
The pledge is probably not wholly responsible for destroying Washington.
Part of the blame also must be assigned to money, particularly the kind to which Burris referred that comes only if you sign the pledge.
If exercised to its logical conclusion, the pledge would force Republicans in Congress to reduce spending without adding new tax revenue. That, in turn, would send new burdens for roads and human services to state governments, where Republican legislators also would have vowed not to raise taxes.
Not only is that the logical conclusion, but it is also, I suspect, the real objective. By that I mean trying to squeeze government nearly out of business.
The pledge is irrational, as Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma might admit.
He led a battle to end subsidies for ethanol production. But Norquist came along and said the elimination of the subsidies, which he professed to support, would amount to a tax increase by providing the federal government additional revenue.
So Norquist opposed the elimination of ethanol subsidies unless it was coupled with a corresponding tax reduction that would keep the federal government from having even an additional penny.
Here in Arkansas, Republican state legislators were told by Norquist’s group two years ago that they would be in violation of the pledge if they voted to permit the state Highway Commission to go to the voters with a proposed constitutional amendment for a temporary sales tax for a highway bond program.
Democrats managed to refer the amendment anyway, and you will have final say in November.
But let me run that by you one more time: This pledge is officially interpreted to mean that a Republican legislator may not trust the voters to think for themselves about whether to part with more of their own money for improvements in the highway system on which they depend.
Burris attempted to justify that to me with a supposed parallel: He said that I, for example, would have declined to sign the petition for an amendment banning gay marriage. He said I would have opposed on principle the idea of giving a proposition I abhorred even a chance to win general voter approval.
I credit Burris with a decent argument, though not a persuasive one.
It is not quite the same caliber of political act.
One proposal asks the people to decide whether to discriminate against other people.
The second proposal asks people to decide for themselves if they are willing themselves to invest money from their own pockets for public improvements.
We need state legislators who can think independently and fluidly while in office, not sell out to a Washington bully with a big funding network before they ever get there.
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John Brummett is a regular columnist for
the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him
at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his
blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com.
Editorial, Pages 15 on 08/02/2012