Thursday, November 03, 2005
More thoughts on the TABOR loss in Colorado
Nathan Newman is absolutely right: yesterday's approval of a Colorado ballot initiative relaxing the robo-fiscal-policy provisions of TABOR is a really big deal.
But I'd like to be more specific: this result is a particular setback for conservative uber-lobbyist Grover Norquist; for his longstanding efforts to dictate state fiscal policies from Washington; and for the crazy-quilt GOP coalition he has done so much to shepherd based on the principle of mutual irresponsibility.
TABOR, a long-time conservative cookie-cutter idea that first reached fruition in Colorado, is sort of the ultimate reflection of the starve-the-beast philosophy of Grover Norquist: taxes and spending must always go down, never up, no matter what's going on in the real world.
And TABOR's enactment represented Grover's big-time clout in state politics around the country. Other than trying to intimidate state and local officials into naming everything possible after Ronald Reagan, Norquist's major outside-the-beltway project has been to intimidate Republican state legislators and governors into a posture of never, ever, considering new revenues in budget decisions. Grover's Rules especially prohibited any effort to close off tax loopholes created to benefit the corporations sitting at his table those famous Wednesday meetings in Washington where the GOP's Theocrat/Mammon/Hack coalition met to get its weekly talking points.
But the whole Grover Machine is beginning to fall apart. Aside from his deep implication in every aspect of the Casino Jack Abramoff scandals, Grover's clout in state politics, even among Republicans, is visibly crumbling, leading him to become not a uniter but a divider in GOP ranks. The TABOR modification initiative was backed by Republican Governor Bill Owens, who not that long ago was being widely touted as a potential presidential champion of the Conservative Movement. But for all his efforts, Grover could not defeat the heretic.
Check out Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform site, and the only comment about his Colorado setback is this, at the very top of the page:
"Young Republican children years from now will be scared in campground campfires by stories about Bill Owens - the tax-cutting Republican who magically turned into a tax-increase bad guy...and they will not be able to sleep all night."
The TABOR modification approved yesterday didn't just liberate Colorado's government from a stupid restriction on democracy; it also helped further the process of loosening the bonds of "our team" Republican solidarity forged by Grover Norquist and his buddy Karl Rove. Every now and then, the real world butts in, and the ideologues and the money-driven networkers must retreat.
Let's pray it's a trend.
But I'd like to be more specific: this result is a particular setback for conservative uber-lobbyist Grover Norquist; for his longstanding efforts to dictate state fiscal policies from Washington; and for the crazy-quilt GOP coalition he has done so much to shepherd based on the principle of mutual irresponsibility.
TABOR, a long-time conservative cookie-cutter idea that first reached fruition in Colorado, is sort of the ultimate reflection of the starve-the-beast philosophy of Grover Norquist: taxes and spending must always go down, never up, no matter what's going on in the real world.
And TABOR's enactment represented Grover's big-time clout in state politics around the country. Other than trying to intimidate state and local officials into naming everything possible after Ronald Reagan, Norquist's major outside-the-beltway project has been to intimidate Republican state legislators and governors into a posture of never, ever, considering new revenues in budget decisions. Grover's Rules especially prohibited any effort to close off tax loopholes created to benefit the corporations sitting at his table those famous Wednesday meetings in Washington where the GOP's Theocrat/Mammon/Hack coalition met to get its weekly talking points.
But the whole Grover Machine is beginning to fall apart. Aside from his deep implication in every aspect of the Casino Jack Abramoff scandals, Grover's clout in state politics, even among Republicans, is visibly crumbling, leading him to become not a uniter but a divider in GOP ranks. The TABOR modification initiative was backed by Republican Governor Bill Owens, who not that long ago was being widely touted as a potential presidential champion of the Conservative Movement. But for all his efforts, Grover could not defeat the heretic.
Check out Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform site, and the only comment about his Colorado setback is this, at the very top of the page:
"Young Republican children years from now will be scared in campground campfires by stories about Bill Owens - the tax-cutting Republican who magically turned into a tax-increase bad guy...and they will not be able to sleep all night."
The TABOR modification approved yesterday didn't just liberate Colorado's government from a stupid restriction on democracy; it also helped further the process of loosening the bonds of "our team" Republican solidarity forged by Grover Norquist and his buddy Karl Rove. Every now and then, the real world butts in, and the ideologues and the money-driven networkers must retreat.
Let's pray it's a trend.
