Americans for Tax Reform

As outrage grows over AIG’s decision to give hundreds of millions of dollars in “retention bonuses” to employees (even though some don’t even work there anymore) after receiving more than $170 billion in bailout funds, members of Congress are considering proposals that would levy heavy taxes on the bonuses:

[L]eading Democrats proposed using the tax code to punish executives at the firm, in which the federal government controls an 80 percent stake, unless those payouts are surrendered voluntarily.

Action on the legislation could begin as early as today in the Senate. A proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the panel's ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), would levy an excise tax on AIG and the executives who received the payments, adding up to more than 90 percent of the total of the bonuses. That tax would also apply to future bonuses awarded, either by AIG or by other firms receiving federal aid … Democratic lawmakers raced to put their proposals on the table. Reps. Steve Israel (N.Y.) and Tim Ryan (Ohio) introduced the Bailout Bonus Tax Bracket Act to create a 100 percent tax on bonuses over $100,000 that are distributed to employees of financial firms receiving federal bailout money. Rep. John D. Dingell (Mich.) offered a version that would tax such bonuses at a 95 percent rate.

Whether or not that is a good idea is debatable, but Grover Norquist and the anti-tax zealots over at Americans for Tax Reform are not interested in participating in that debate, saying that the bailout should never have happened in the first place and that efforts by the government to recover this money constitute a “secret tax increase” that must be offset by other tax cuts :

"Let's be clear---the bailout should have never happened, no matter who is benefiting. No more bailout money should be paid.  Any monies that are set to go out should be immediately-rescinded," said ATR President Grover Norquist.  "But two wrongs don't make a right.  A tax increase does not 'make up for' a bad decision on spending.  If politicians decide that taxes need to be raised on AIG executives, they should at least have the decency to cut taxes somewhere else."

This is taxpayer money that the government is trying to recover, but in Norquist’s myopic worldview, all he can see is a “secret tax increase.”

You have got to hand it to Norquist, as he seems committed to standing by his “no tax increases, ever” principle even when it leads to fundamentally absurd conclusions such as this.

I've always wanted to launch my own grassroots political organization dedicated to protecting our Third Amendment rights, collecting donations, and then just sitting back while turning out glowing annual reports about how, thanks to our tireless efforts, no citizen was compelled to house soldiers in their place of residence during times of peace for 217 consecutive years.

While it is not quite as ingenious as my idea, it looks like the Media Research Center is launching it's own version of this sort of can't-possibly-fail initiative, as Alex Koppelman points out:

Whether they know it or not, the staff at the Media Research Center -- a conservative press watchdog -- seems to have hit upon an ingenious new strategy: make a big deal about getting involved in fights in which your enemy is nonexistent. You can't possibly lose!

Monday, the MRC announced the formation of the Free Speech Alliance, a group dedicated to fighting against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC regulation that mandated equal time for opposing viewpoints in opinion programming. The move was announced in a post on MRC's blog, Newsbusters, that was titled "The Free Speech Alliance Declares War on the 'Censorship Doctrine.'"

The MRC is also asking people to sign a petition against revival of the regulation. "In 1987, President Ronald Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine and since then, talk radio has flourished. Conservatives dominate it, and liberals can't stand it. By re-instating the Fairness Doctrine, liberals would effectively silence the conservative leaders of the day ... and would essentially take control of all forms of media," the group says in an introduction on the Web page that hosts the petition. On the same page, the MRC warns, "In recent months, the groundswell for reinstatement is intensifying. In fact, a growing number of liberal leaders in Washington, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have openly stated their intent to do so."

...

According to the MRC, Fairness Alliance member organizations include Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Women for America and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Of course this sort of right-wing effort to save America from the return of the Fairness Doctrine is almost guarantee to succeed without those involved having to do anything at al since, as Marin Cogan explains, there is no effort underway or desire whatsoever to actually reinstate it:

Today, the doctrine has almost no support from media-reform advocates. According to Mark Lloyd, co-author of the CAP report, "I don't think there's any movement [to restore the fairness doctrine] at all. ... We don't support it. " Craig Aaron of the media-reform group FreePress says, "[I]n reality, the fairness doctrine as it existed is never ever coming back."

Responses from the offices of most of the Democrats who have been pegged as fairness-doctrine proponents--Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and others--have ranged from a firm denial that the issue is a priority at all to disbelief at finding themselves at the center of a manufactured controversy. "Somebody plucked this out of the clear blue sky," says the press secretary for New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who was questioned about the issue by a conservative radio-show host a few weeks ago. "This is a completely made- up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion." In fact, as recently as last year, the House voted by an overwhelming three-to-one margin to temporarily prohibit the FCC from imposing the dead policy; 113 Democrats voted to support the move.

Meanwhile, the president-elect himself has said in no uncertain terms that he does "not support reimposing the fairness doctrine on broadcasters." Republican paranoia is nothing more than that.

It’s all over but the shouting in the Republican primary, and more and more right-wing figures are falling in line behind the presumptive nominee. Still, there are some hold-outs, unwilling to reject McCain (as James Dobson has) but hoping to squeeze the last few drops of their leverage into yet more concessions.

It seems to be working. Rather than looking towards building a broader coalition for the general election, McCain still seems to be concentrating on the last few corners of the Right. Grover Norquist, who just weeks ago was lambasting McCain for not signing his tax pledge, now gets to hear McCain mouth the promise again and again. And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council must have been pleased to have been one of the first people McCain called when the senator was trying to manage the New York Times lobbyist story:

"It's early in the process and he's made inroads with social conservatives," said Perkins, who got a call from McCain shortly after his morning press conference. "He's been very aggressive about handling this and he assured me this is not true." McCain's campaign is pointedly attacking the Times, which last month endorsed the senator. And that always plays well in the conservative community, Perkins says.

"When I speak to social conservatives around the country I tell them I read my Bible daily to see what God has to say about matters of importance," Perkins says, "and then I read the New York Times to see what the other side has to say."

While the conservative movement coalition of the economic right and social right has shown some small cracks in the last year, one bill in Congress has them singing the same tune: a proposal to expand the coverage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The Religious Right is complaining that the bill defines “children” beginning with birth, rather than conception. According to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, making “unborn children” ineligible to sign up for insurance “is a calculated move to open the door to federal taxpayer-funded abortions.” (FRC’s David Christiansen clarified: “The federal dollars wouldn't necessarily be used to do the abortion, but it's freeing up states to perform these other services, including abortion, with their own state money.”)

Meanwhile, National Right to Life Committee asserted that the bill would lead to Medicare “rationing” and thus “involuntary euthanasia.” “They have attacked the sanctity of life both at the beginning and the latter stages of life,” cried Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, speaking of “the Democratic leadership” in Congress.

In addition, the Religious Right warns that the bill renews funding for abstinence education, but doesn’t restrict it to abstinence-only programs. “They’re simply giving states more money to fund Planned Parenthood and the programs that teach our children to have sex,” complained Linda Klepacki of Focus on the Family. “Comprehensive sex education will once again have a monopoly on your school systems.”

Meanwhile, economic-right activists are warning that expanding SCHIP is “a step towards socialism.” In this, they find welcome support from Perkins, who – despite his warnings about abortion – wrote that the “[m]ost important” aspect of the bill is that “its expansion represents a direct attack on private insurance, pushing Americans closer to what many Democratic leaders have long advocated--government-run, taxpayer-funded, universal health care, managed with the same efficiency and customer care as your local DMV.”

Both the Heritage Foundation and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform have trashed the bill. But as Robert Novak reports, they are having some trouble on the details, arguing with each other over right-wing amendments offered by Republicans.