As a chief architect of the "K Street Project" and the Bush administration annual large tax cuts for the rich, Norquist has embodied the Republican goal of shrinking government so that he can "drown it in a bathtub" - democracy and the common good be damned. He has threatened, "We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals, and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship." Applauding the effects of states' fiscal crises on schools and the poor, Norquist expressed the hope that at least one of the states "goes bankrupt." Well, we are witnessing the effects of efforts by Norquist and others to privatize and downsize government entities like FEMA, and to "defund the left."
Norquist has gloated, "There isn't any `us' and `them' with [the Bush] administration. They is us. We is them." Toward creation of a one-party system in America, the "K Street Project" is a Republican power grab that demands big business hire Republicans to high-level corporate and industry lobbyist positions, while firing those with Democratic connections.
It was Senator Rick Santorum's job during the 108th Congress to reward party loyalty by vetting the hiring decisions regarding major lobbyists. Indicative of a Washington culture of intimidation and bullying, with the consequent "government-of-the-highest-bidder," "K Street" operative Tom DeLay pronounced, "If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules."
It is farcical that Grover Norquist should come to Colorado to campaign against Ballot Initiatives, Referenda C & D, the effort to overcome the ratcheting-down effect of the state budget by the 1992 TABOR ("Taxpayer Bill of Rights") Amendment, which is effectively eviscerating funding for such public costs as education, health and roadways.
With all of their efforts to "defund the left" and eliminate all programs dating to the New Deal, the right is engineering a monumental transfer of wealth and political power toward their wealthy allies. They protect capital, and tax labor, while adding to the gross inflation of corporate welfare --witness 10's of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies awarded to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries by the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Bill alone. Even as the right went after the $67 billion total of all social welfare programs in 1995, the Center for Responsive Law reported that corporate welfare (subsidies and tax breaks) totaled more than twice as much, $167 billion in that year alone. We must stop the hemorrhage of state public funds, which the right seeks to redirect toward efforts to privatize everything for corporate profit, further exacerbating (More at www.theopolitics.com)the immense disparity of wealth and power in America.