Bill Clinton slams Grover Norquist?s ?chilling? veto power over GOP

Bill Clinton at The White House last December
(Photo: White House)

The Big Dog, endorsing corporate tax reform, tells a crowd of 800 at the Aspen Ideas Festival that Grover Norquist's grip over the GOP is the biggest obstacle in achieving a long-term deficit deal:

?When I was president, we raised the corporate income-tax rates on corporations that made over $10 million [a year],? the former president told the Aspen Ideas Festival on Saturday evening.

?It made sense when I did it. It doesn?t make sense anymore ? we?ve got an uncompetitive rate. We tax at 35 percent of income, although we only take about 23 percent. So, we SHOULD cut the rate to 25 percent, or whatever?s competitive, and eliminate a lot of the deductions so that we still get a FAIR amount, and there?s not so much variance in what the corporations pay. But how can they do that by Aug. 2??

Clinton also said Grover Norquist, who as president of Americans for Tax Reform is the GOP?s unofficial enforcer of no-new-taxes pledges, has a ?chilling? hold on the nation?s lawmaking.

The former president said it has seemed like Republicans need any revenue concessions need to be ?approved in advance by Grover Norquist.?

?You?re laughing,? he told the crowd of 800. ?But he was quoted in the paper the other day saying he gave Republican senators PERMISSION ? on getting rid of the ethanol subsidies. I thought, ?My GOD, what has this country come to when one person has to give you permission to do what?s best for the country.? It was chilling.?

Clinton also expressed pessimism that a comprehensive long-term deficit deal could be reached by August 2, though he said that if one were possible, it would have to be "something like what the Bowles-Simpson committee recommended." In way, that statement proves the point he was trying to make, because what the Bowles-Simpson committee recommended was nothing. They failed to approve a proposal. He obviously meant what Bowles and Simpson released as their own proposal, but the fact that they couldn't get it through their own commission underscores the near impossibility of actually getting a comprehensive deal through Congress in the next four weeks.

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