Grover Norquist likes Scott Brown's bathing suit?
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) gave a whole speech this week devoted to the glories of bipartisanship and civility, because he has to. It's key to his reelection in November to portray himself as and independent kind of guy, willing to work across the aisle.
Scratch just below the surface, though, and it obvious where his loyalties lie; first and foremost, with Grover Norquist. Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh spoke with Brown after his speech, and asked him about what he'd be willing to do to deal with the national debt. In other words, would he vote to raise taxes.
[I] asked the senator if, along with entitlement reform, he would eventually support more revenue. Before considering any revenue increases, Brown said, “We need to fix the things like you read about: the fact that they [the General Services Administration] are spending $1 million of our tax money going to Vegas, the fact that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars through fraud, waste, and abuse with Medicare. . . Then we need to look at entitlement reform, then we need to look at streamlining, consolidating, looking at the way we do procurement and military spending. Then we need to look at some of the loopholes, if there are some out there. . . but to just pit people against each other, us versus them, the haves and the have nots, it is not going to work.”
There's a lot of weaseling in that answer, but there's one thing that's very clear: no, he will not vote to raise taxes. That was made pretty clear already, when he went along with the Republican filibuster on the
Buffett Rule and on
ending subsidies for big oil. He signed Norquists
no tax pledge, and that's the one political promise you can be sure Brown is going to keep.
Please contribute $5 to help Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.