Posts on Americans for Tax Reform

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 "In 1987, President Ronald Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine and since then, talk radio has flourished.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.

Grover Norquist has decided to request a government bailout: 

I write today to formally request $700 billion from the TARP Capital Purchase Program. Since unionized auto companies, state and local governments, and certain credit card companies are applying, I thought I should, as well … I have a plan for this $700 billion which should be just what’s needed to get the American economy going.  Since the money came from the taxpayers in the first place, I propose giving it back to them.

I suspect that he is trying to make a joke because he tells the Treasury Department to “consult my staff for any ACH transfer information your people may need.”  As anybody familiar with Norquist already knows, that’s not how he operates at all. 

If he was serious about getting funding for his operations, he’d just have Jack Abramoff swindle some Indian tribes out of millions of dollars and then funnel the money to him via his Americans for Tax Reform.  And he certainly wouldn't pass the rest on to the taxpayers; instead he would take a large cut and the rest would go to people like Ralph Reed in order to cover the money trail and nobody would find out until a Senate investigation uncovered the illegal activity and a bunch of people went to jail.

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."

Brownback, Huckabee, Hunter, Paul, Romney, Tancredo have signed "pledge."

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.

The National Tax Limitation Committee and the National Center for Policy are hosting an awkwardly worded “The ‘Optimal (Right) Size of Government’ Conference” (PDF) tomorrow that will bring together “more than 20 of the leading free-market experts will convene in Washington to discuss whether there is and can be an objective standard to determine the proper size and role of government.”

Among the participants is Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform – and it is not hard to figure out what his view of the proper size of the government will be:

“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Citizen Outreach and Americans for Tax Reform plan Conservative Leadership Conference for October in Nevada. Gingrich, Thompson, Tancredo, Giuliani, McCain, Romney invited.

To “offset” social positions (temp link). E.g.: Steve Forbes endorses Giuliani.

Much has been written of the unseasonably early 2008 presidential campaign, but one unanticipated side effect is that the Conservative Political Action Conference agenda is larded with ambitious politicians hoping to surprise – or at least appease – what all of them have apparently decided is their best hope, the far-right base. No less than eight Republican contenders (if you count Newt Gingrich, who appears to be looking for the side entrance to the White House) are scheduled; the only major candidate missing is John McCain.

And so the activist crowd, compared to last year’s conference, is more enthused with people than with causes. Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a relatively unknown candidate, managed to fill a good portion of the large hall first thing in the morning. By 10 this morning, Mike Huckabee had people standing in the back, and at noon, CPAC staff closed off the wing as Rudy Giuliani had filled it up. At that point, a line began forming for those who wanted to see Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, and Mitt Romney, and by the time Giuliani finished his hour-long speech, the hundreds in line stretched back to the exhibit hall in the next wing. Of course, that may not have reflected any popularity on the part of the candidates themselves so much as the crowd wanting to get their money’s worth at the three-day event.

What he calls “Leave Us Alone coalition.” ISI’s McCarthy questions this “fusionism,” while ACU defends it.

On abortion, stem cells. Meanwhile: Long-shot Hunter signs Norquist’s no-tax pledge.

Groups had pushed privatization.

Focus on the Family, RightMarch urge members of contact Congress; Americans for Tax Reform “may rate” votes on the provision.

As contenders for the Republican nomination for president jostle for the Right’s favor, much of the focus has been on social wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. The Religious Right has signaled that it will not be easy to please, and the candidates have responded by working overtime to prove their bona fides.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has carefully courted religious-right leaders and whose speech against same-sex marriage at FRC’s “Liberty Sunday” event was interpreted as a pitch for the evangelical vote, fell afoul of the Right when statements he made in 1994 were revisited that seemed to reveal a more liberal stance on abortion and gays. His attempts to explain his apparent shift and to recover his position have interfered with his efforts to “occupy the conservative ground” early.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback has also been angling for that same ground, by positioning himself as the defender of Christmas, by emphasizing support for faith-based programs, and by keeping the right-wing assault on the judiciary alive in the Senate. He has been seen in Iowa recently, hoping for a state-level Religious Right with increased influence. (He’s already picked up the endorsement of the president of Iowa Right to Life.) Brownback told the National Catholic Reporter, “I’ll be the only person at the core of the campaign who will be pushing for the reform of the family and restoration of the culture and human dignity at all phases of life.”

But lest the economic Right feel left out, both Romney and Brownback, a day apart, just signed the “Taxpayer’s Protection Pledge” put out by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist, a leading organizer of the right-wing coalition in Washington, has famously described his goal as “to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Automated campaign calls from “FreeEats” were paid for by Tom DeLay, Minutemen, FRC, and more.