WASHINGTON – The only way to prevent the Obama administration from blaming Republicans in the fiscal cliff debate is to demand transparency by bringing in television cameras, says noted tax activist Grover Norquist.
What advice would Norquist give House Speaker John Boehner?
“Bring in C-SPAN and televise the negotiations,” Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform told WND in an exclusive interview. “It’s the best way to expose the White House plan to build public pressure on Republicans to force House Speaker John Boehner to cave into at the eleventh hour to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.
Norquist advised that Congressional Republicans should use the fiscal cliff crisis as an opportunity to make a vocal demand that President Obama must live up to his often repeated promise to make government transparent by opening up administration tax debates with Congress to C-SPAN cameras.
“The fiscal cliff is not a one-time crisis,” Norquist warned. “If Republicans in Congress play their cards right, we are facing four years of unpleasantness for Obama.
Norquist explained that immediately following the fiscal cliff argument over raising federal income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, there will be a renewed debate in Congress over raising the federal debt-ceiling level.
Then in March and April, the White House will have to return to Congress for continuing resolutions to keep the government functioning.
Without an annual budget, there is no way the Obama administration can keep the federal government operating unless Congress passes continuing resolutions.
“The continuing resolution battle is every bit as exciting a leverage point to control federal spending as is the debate over the federal debt ceiling,” Norquist argued.
“Two years ago, the Republicans in Congress passed continuing resolutions for two or three weeks at a time and made Obama pay for every continuing resolution with a small savings. Obama couldn’t shut the federal government down over $3 or $4 billion over a cut he already agreed to make, and the Republicans were moving down the field three yards at a time, and there’s nothing wrong with winning slowly.”
The strategy of passing a series of short-term continuing resolutions would allow the Republicans to negotiate in exchange a series of spending cuts that would provide victories for the GOP in Congress.
“If the Obama administration would implement a Simpson-Bowles reform that retiring federal employees should not get replaced by hiring a new employee, that would result in a quantifiable savings in federal spending that the Republicans in Congress,” Norquist pointed out.
“Forcing upon the administration reform measures that Obama has opposed in the past, the Republicans can get credit by claiming Republicans in Congress imposed by their will spending the president otherwise never would have made.”
WND has previously reported Norquist’s concern that the White House push to utilize the fiscal cliff crisis as an opportunity to force the Republicans to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans would be followed by Democratic efforts to pass a massive energy tax, as well as a value-added tax, or VAT, on the U.S. economy.
Norquist predicted Obama would push the fiscal cliff down to the wire.
“There is every reason to believe that Obama as a deliberate strategy wants to push the crisis over the fiscal cliff,” he speculated.
“Obama would like to be able to blame Republicans for the lousy economy that is already baked into the cake because of Obama administration regulations and tax increases the Obama administration has already passed through measures like Obamacare.”
But Norquist insisted the pressure on Boehner to cave only mounts if Obama manages to convince the American public that it’s the Republicans’ fault.
“That’s why I’m an advocate of putting the tax negotiations on C-SPAN,” Norquist insisted. “Otherwise the Obama administration and their friends in the mainstream media will work together in secret to write the narrative of the fiscal cliff debate that says the Republicans deserve the blame for a bad economy.”