In the POLITICO Arena, Grover Norquist responds to “President Obama — scolder-in-chief?”: “The Republican House passed a budget a while ago. The Democrat-run Senate didn’t pass a budget this year or last year. And Barack Obama held a press conference to chastise Republicans for not doing their work? Who is fooled? This is partisan ranting. Since it isn’t true it is a politically-driven lie. Not exactly presidential. Obama is still running for president rather than being president. He may get through four years without ever being president. That is a very long campaign.”
Sam Baker writes for The Hill: “Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said Wednesday that he supports the Medicare plan released by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) Norquist said ‘ideal’ Medicare reform would look more like the proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which would convert Medicare into a sort of voucher system. But Lieberman and Coburn’s proposal would improve the program without raising taxes, Norquist said. The Lieberman plan would require higher-income beneficiaries to pay more out-of-pocket costs and raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67. ‘The alternative would be raising taxes, cutting benefits for less affluent seniors, or going into unsustainable levels of debt,’ Norquist wrote in a letter to Lieberman and Coburn. Lieberman… said Tuesday that he dropped a proposed income tax hike from his Medicare plan in order to win Coburn’s support. ‘Your outline gives a path forward for Medicare should fundamental reform not be achieved,’ Norquist said in his letter to the senators. ‘Most importantly, and pending a full score, the Coburn-Lieberman outline appears to address Medicare’s problems without raising taxes.’”
Jackie Kucinich writes for USA Today: “Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and founder of an anti-tax pledge that has become a staple of Republican candidates, said not all pledges are created equal. Norquist said while some groups create a pledge to draw attention to an issue of the moment, ATR’s pledge to oppose ‘any and all efforts to raise taxes’ has been a must-sign for candidates for the last 25 years. He said he does not support candidates who don't sign.”
John Rossomando writes for Human Events: “The White House claims ObamaCare will make health care more affordable for all Americans, but a closer look at the costs of the mandates shows just the opposite to be the case. ‘The bottom line is that we are talking about one-size-fits-all health insurance,’ said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director with Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). ‘You have the Left’s idea—the limousine liberal idea—of what health insurance should look like. They want to force people to buy that sort of health insurance to the exclusion of other health insurance that might make better sense.’The CBO report indicates that consumers could end up paying less directly to their insurers once the health insurance exchanges come into being in 2014, but it will be at the cost of more than $500 billion in new taxes, according to an ATR analysis.”