Vicki Needham from The Hill: “Republicans have targeted for repeal a tax on tanning-bed services meant to offset costs of the new healthcare law. Americans for Tax Reform said the tax is one of 20 new or higher taxes included in the healthcare law enacted last year that it’s targeting to repeal. ‘It disproportionately hurts women- and minority-owned small businesses with very low profit margins,’ said ATF’s Ryan Ellis, which backs the full repeal of the healthcare law.”
From The Hill, Bernie Becker writes: “Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax outfit founded by Grover Norquist, has announced it will score the Senate vote on a measure to delay new debit-card rules. The group says it supports a proposal from Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that would delay the implementation of new debit-card regulations, currently set to go into effect on July 21. ‘We support any effort to stall these regulations before they take effect,’ John Kartch told The Hill in an e-mail. In a Tuesday announcement, ATR also said it believed that capping interchange fees would merely shift costs to banks and consumers. ‘The interchange fee regulations violate free-market principles and property rights, setting below-cost price controls and depriving card issuers of a return on capital invested,’ ATR said on Tuesday.”
Henry J. Reske from Newsmax.com: “The GOP has been on a three-decade, anti-tax crusade that is so powerful that House Speaker John Boehner has said that raising taxes to deal with the crushing debt and deficit is ‘unacceptable and a non-starter,’ and all but 13 of the 288 GOP members of Congress have signed Norquist’s formal pledge not to raise taxes, the Post reported. Norquist said equating tax breaks with spending ‘is a threat to the modern Republican Party’s worldview’ of a much smaller government and reducing the tax drag on the economy. Eliminating tax breaks can only be done if all the proceeds are used to push tax rates ‘down as far as possible,’ Norquist told the Post, adding that the work of reducing the national debt must be done entirely by shrinking government.”
John Distaso from The Union Leader writes: “One of the nation's most well-known anti-tax advocates will join recently announced GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum in Manchester on Wednesday. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist is slated to be on hand to witness Santorum sign ATR’s ‘Taxpayer Protection Pledge.’ Norquist told the Granite Status today that Santorum will be third presidential candidate to sign the pledge so far in the current campaign. He said businessman Herman Cain and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson have also signed. Norquist said the pledge simply says, ‘I will oppose and veto any effort to raise taxes.’ He said Santorum signed the pledge as a member of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, ‘and we are delighted that he is continuing the commitment to taxpayers.’ Norquist said all other GOP presidential candidates have indicated to him that they intend to sign the pledge as well.”
From Hookah: “The Georgia House of Representatives is mounting a move to increase state excise taxes on cigarettes by 270 percent and pipe and smokeless tobacco by 150 percent that the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association and Americans for Tax Reform are having none of. In a letter to Georgia House and Senate Taxpayer Protection Pledge signers, the ATR said, ‘A vote in favor of this tax hike would be a violation of the… commitment you made to your constituents to oppose any and all tax increases.’ Chris McCalla, legislative director of the Columbus, Georgia-based IPCPR, agreed with the ATR’s position that, ‘It is critical to revitalize Georgia’s economy with tax cuts, not tax increases. We must lift the burden of larger government from the backs of hardworking taxpayers and consumers instead of further depressing economic activity.’”