Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has launched an attack on GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson for Thompson's refusal to sign Norquist's pledge against raising taxes. Team Fred spokeswoman Karen Hanretty explained her candidate's position in an e-mail:

Fred Thompson’s record of cutting taxes and pushing for reform speaks for itself. This is the approach he will take as president. He is bound by that principle and does not make a practice of signing pledges.

That answer was not good enough for Grover the Security Pushover (more on that further down the column), who told Ronald Kessler of Newsmax:

The fact that he refuses to say he won’t raise taxes and in fact all but shouts he wants to walk into a room and raise taxes to fix entitlements means that on taxes, he is the worst Republican running.

The worst Republican running, on taxes? Norquist should have at least checked out Thompson's record on taxes before making a total fool out of himself. Had he bothered to read the tax-minimalist Club for Growth's white paper on Fred Thompson, for example, he would have learned that:

Over his eight years in the Senate, Fred Thompson generally supported broad-based tax cuts while opposing tax increases. These include:

Voted for the 2001 Bush tax cuts
Voted for repeal of the Death Tax
Voted for capital gains tax cuts
Voted to require a supermajority to pass tax hikes
Voted to reduce the amount of Social Security benefits subject to taxation
Voted against waiving the Budget Act to allow for a cigarette tax hike

Thompson was a forceful proponent of tax reform, lambasting the IRS as “mismanaged” and “wasteful,” and a strong supporter of the flat tax. In fact, Thompson was the only senator to vote to table an amendment proposed by Senator Dorgan that took the flat tax off the table during a budget debate. “The problem with the Dorgan amendment is simple,” Thompson declared in a press release the following day, “it puts you on record against a flat tax. I think a flat tax is one of the options that should be considered as part of the debate on comprehensive tax reform.”

Or Norquist could have consulted with the libertarian CATO Institute's Michael Tanner, who wrote in American Spectator:

During his eight years in the Senate, Thompson had a solid record as a fiscal conservative. The National Taxpayers Union gives him the third highest marks of any candidate (trailing only Reps. Ron Paul and Rep. Tom Tancredo). He generally shared McCain’s opposition to pork barrel spending and earmarks, and voted against the 2002 farm bill. He voted for the Bush tax cuts and has generally been solid in support of tax reduction. He has consistently supported entitlement reform, voting to means-test Medicare and supporting personal accounts for Social Security.

BTW, The National Taxpayers Union that Tanner references voted Fred Thompson the winner of its presidential straw poll back in June:

Every attendee of our Conference was given a chance to vote for any of the declared Presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat. After counting the votes, we can announce partial results.

Fred Thompson was the winner with 25.7% of the vote.
Ron Paul came in second place with 16.7%.
Rudy Giuliani placed third with 12.5%
Mitt Romney garnered 9.0% of the vote to snag fourth place.
The top five was rounded out by John McCain, who received 5.6%

Had he taken the trouble, Norquist could have investigated how Fred Thompson was rated by other interest groups concerned with budget, spending and tax-related issues:

Fred Thompson supported the interests of the Americans for Tax Reform:
90 percent in 2001
90 percent in 2000
85 percent in 1999
70 percent in 1998.

Thompson supported the interests of the National Tax Limitation Committee:
97 percent in 1999-2000
89 percent in 1997-1998
97 percent in 1995-1996

Thompson supported the interests of the National Taxpayers Union:
84 percent in 2001
80 percent in 1999
70 percent in 1998
78 percent in 1997

On that same website, Sen. Thompson's individual votes on fiscal issues are plainly displayed for Norquist and everyone else to see.

On a similar website, a more intellectually curious Norquist could have read some key Fred Thompson tax quotes...

“The US tax code is broken and a burden on US taxpayers and businesses, large & small. Today’s tax code is particularly hostile to savings & investment, and it shows. To make matters worse, its complexity is a drag on our productivity and economic growth. Moreover, taxpayers spend billions of dollars & untold hours each year filling out complicated tax returns, just so they can send more money to Washington, much of it for wasteful programs & the pet projects of special interests. We need lower taxes, & we need to let taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned dollars—they know best where & how to spend them. And we need to make the system simpler & fairer for all. To ensure America’s long term prosperity & economic security, I am committed to:
- Fundamental tax reform built on the principles of simplicity, fairness, and growth
- A new tax code that gets the government out of our citizens’ pocketbooks, while enhancing US competitiveness abroad
- Dissolution of the IRS as we know it.” - Fred Thompson
Source: Campaign website, www.Fred08.com, “Issues” Sep 20, 2007

“We have a tax code that’s hopelessly out of date and out of step for our times now, punishes the things that we say that we want more of and makes us less competitive in the world.” - Fred Thompson
Source: Fox News “Hannity & Colmes” interview Jun 6, 2007

While serving in the US Senate, Fred Thompson was a consistent proponent for lower taxes and a more simplified tax system. He hasn’t changed his mind. Thompson says, “We need to reject taxes that punish rather than reward success. Those who say they want a “more progressive” tax system should be asked one question: Are you really interested in tax rates that benefit the economy and raise revenue—or are you interested in redistributing income for political reasons?”
Source: The Fred Factor, by Steve Gill, p.166-169 Jun 3, 2007

“Taxes are necessary. But they don’t make the country any better off. At best they simply move money from the private sector to the government. But taxes are also a burden on production, because they discourage people from investing & taking risks. Some economists have calculated that today each additional $1 collected by the government, by raising income-tax rates, makes the private sector as much as $2 worse off. To me this means one simple thing: tax rates should be as low as possible.” - Fred Thomspon
Source: Speech to Lincoln Club Annual Dinner, Orange County CA May 4, 2007

“There is reason to smile this tax season. The results of the experiment that began when Congress passed a series of tax-rate cuts in 2001 & 2003 are in. Supporters of those cuts said they would stimulate the economy. Opponents predicted ever-increasing budget deficits and national bankruptcy unless tax rates were increased, especially on the wealthy.
In fact, Treasury statistics show that tax revenues have soared and the budget deficit has been shrinking faster than even the optimists projected. Since the first tax cuts were passed, when I was in the Senate, the budget deficit has been cut in half.

Critics claimed that across-the-board tax cuts were some sort of gift to the rich but, on the contrary, the wealthy are paying a greater percentage of the national bill than ever before. The richest 1% of Americans now pays 35% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay more taxes than the bottom 60%. Because of lower rates, money is being invested in our economy instead of being sheltered from the taxman.” - Fred Thompson
Source: Fred Thompson editorial in The Wall Street Journal Apr 14, 2007

...and votes:

Voted NO on reducing marriage penalty instead of cutting top tax rates.
Vote to expand the standard deduction and 15% income tax bracket for couples. The elimination of the “marriage penalty” tax would be offset by reducing the marginal tax rate reductions for the top two rate bracket
Reference: Bill HR 1836 ; vote number 2001-112 on May 17, 2001

Voted NO on increasing tax deductions for college tuition.
Vote to increase the tax deduction for college tuition costs from $5,000 to $12,000 and increase the tax credit on student loan interest from $500 to $1,000. The expense would be offset by limiting the cut in the top estate tax rate to 53%.
Reference: Bill HR 1836 ; vote number 2001-114 on May 17, 2001

Voted YES on eliminating the ‘marriage penalty’.
Vote on a bill that would reduce taxes on married couples by increasing their standard deduction to twice that of single taxpayers and raise the income limits on both the 15 percent and 28 percent tax brackets for married couples to twice that of singles
Reference: Bill HR.4810 ; vote number 2000-215 on Jul 18, 2000

Voted YES on across-the-board spending cut.
The Nickles (R-OK) Amdendment would express the sense of the Senate that Congress should adopt an across-the-board cut in all discretionary funding, to prevent the plundering of the Social Security Trust Fund
Status: Amdt. Agreed to Y)54; N)46
Reference: Nickles Amdt #1889; Bill S. 1650 ; vote number 1999-313 on Oct 6, 1999

Voted YES on requiring super-majority for raising taxes.
Senator Kyl (R-AZ) offered an amendment to the 1999 budget resolution to express the sense of the Senate on support for a Constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority to pass tax increases.
Status: Amdt Agreed to Y)50; N)48; NV)2
Reference: Kyl Amdt #2221; Bill S Con Res 86 ; vote number 1998-71 on Apr 2, 1998

Fred Thompson Strongly Opposes topic 11: Repeal tax cuts on wealthy

Finally, a Grover Norquist who was honestly interested enough to learn Fred Thompson's thinking on taxes could have read some of Fred's writing on the subject here, here and here.

But no, Grover Norquist is not interested in Fred Thompson's actual philosophy and record on taxes. He's only interested in his self-aggrandizing tax pledge.

Meanwhile, Norquist has some issues of his own which put him at odds with most conservatives and other patriots in this country.

Instead of attacking Fred Thompson on taxes, one of the former Senator's strongest issues, Norquist should be explaining his relationship with his strange bedfellows, many of whom want to see the United States of America brought down in a bloody jihad.

Besides, pledges against raising taxes are no guarantee that they will not be increased, as we all learned from the case of a one-term former president who once said something about reading lips. Bush 41 and Ronald Reagan both learned the hard way that sometimes, faced with an uncooperative congress, a president's stated principles may get compromised to achieve his larger goals. In Reagan's case it was spending the Soviets into the collapse of their empire. In the case of the elder Bush, it was done in the name of deficit reduction and to head off a recession. Fred Thompson, taking to heart Santayana's advice to learn from history, is not likely to push for further campaign finance reform, although he is still dismayed by the corruptness of a politician taking big money from donors and then passing legislation favorable to those same donors. And, despite his refusal to sign Norquist's ultimatum, neither is he likely to raise taxes as president. Perhaps Thompson is also taking to heart a lesser-known piece of advice from Santayana: "Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be."

 

- Josh Painter