Do you want a puppet to represent you in Congress or be your President?
Wouldn't you prefer to have someone who thinks for himself or herself and acts in the best interest of the country, rather than a robot who jumps whenever strings are pulled by a behind-the-scenes controller?
Republicans are those puppets. Grover Norquist is the puppeteer. His rigid anti-tax pledge is the strings. Columnist Dana Milbank reports that it's been signed by all but four House Republicans, most Republican Senators, and Mitt Romney.
Read his column, "Grover Norquist delivers the GOP's marching orders." Then make your own independent, provisional, thoughtful, reasonable vow: Vote for Democrats in 2012. Milbank writes:
“The leader of the Republican Party is up here today on the Hill. . . . You know who it is: It’s Grover Norquist,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference Thursday, a couple of days after charging, with some validity, that Norquist “has the entire Republican Party in the palm of his hand.”
Norquist didn’t quarrel with the charge, as Fox News’s Chad Pergram put it to him, that he’s giving Republicans “their marching orders.”
“The modern Republican Party works with the taxpayer movement,” he replied, satisfied that “post-pledge, post-tea party, they’re not going to raise taxes.”
Even on the super-rich, who have benefited hugely from the Bush tax cuts, garnering an ever increasing share of the nation's wealth while the middle class suffers. Even if raising taxes a bit on those who can well afford to pay more is necessary to reduce the nation's budget deficit, while preserving essential program for those who need them.
Fundamentalism is destructive. Fundamentalists were behind 9/11, causing great harm to the people of the United States. Religious and political iundamentalism like the Norquist anti-tax jihad commandment, which almost all Republicans bow down to daily, is equally destructive.
Elected officials should honor a different vow: to do what is best for the country.
Since almost all Republicans have given their allegiance instead to a single person, Grover Norquist, this is a great reason to not vote for them in November.
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