Grover Norquist, the man in charge of all Republican state budgets
This is the saddest, most pathetic thing I've heard in some time. The Republican-governed, Bobby Jindal-headed state of Louisiana is in dire straits, as you probably know, facing a massive $1.6 billion hole in the budget. As budget disasters go it's well on its way to being the next Kansas; like Kansas, it too is saddled with a governor whose interest in absolute ideological purity far outweighs his interest in not plowing the whole state's economy into the ground.
State Republicans know they need to raise more revenue in order to avoid steep, untenable budget cuts. So they went to Grover Norquist, king of conservative anti-tax policy and apparent ruler of all elected Republicans everywhere, to beg him to show mercy on their plight.
For months now legislators have accused Jindal of kowtowing to Norquist's "no tax pledge," which stipulates that taxes cannot be raised unless they’re offset by spending cuts elsewhere. And this weekend they'd had enough. A group of self-described "conservative" Republican state representatives took their complaints to Norquist himself, asking him to give them some wiggle room on raising taxes and to shoot down some Jindal-backed legislation that they say would set a "dangerous precedent" in how government could mask revenue hikes.
Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform, shot back Monday in a letter of his own, in which he okayed the proposal in question and called legislators' inability to find cuts elsewhere "disconcerting."
The man who demands America drown their government in the bathtub is not yet impressed. Are you Somalia yet, Louisiana? No? Then quit whining and start cutting.
Mind you, these are the elected leaders of the state. They know damn well that the Jindal-pushed budget would be an onerous, gimmick-laden train wreck. They're willing to say so in public—but they still consider their hands tied and their state to be verily screwed unless they can somehow gain permission from the cut-all-taxes-everywhere man who runs the party.
Really now, that's just sad. I realize our politicians are seldom profiles in courage, but bowing and scraping for ideological permission to be allowed to do the thing you know is right for your own constituents is cowardice on an entirely new level. If Grover Norquist wants to determine budget policy in Louisiana he can run for office there, but otherwise maybe the rest of these wilting flowers might want to do their own jobs, not his.
