Famously outspoken former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) went on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” this morning to advocate the deficit-reduction plan crafted with former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, but launched into a monologue about Republican purity and RINO labels.
Simpson was asked about House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) view that the Simpson-Bowles plan has too many tax increases and not enough spending cuts.
“Well, I think my party and I have different views on a lot of things. I guess I’m known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only because I guess of social views perhaps or common sense would be another one which seems to escape members of our party,” Simpson said, adding that men shouldn’t vote on abortion and gay rights should boil down to “we’re all God’s children.”
“And for heaven’s sakes, you have Grover Norquist wandering the Earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you. He can’t murder you, he can’t burn your house, the only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection,” the former senator continued.
“And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress.”
“…This is madness,” Simpson said. “If you want to be a purest, go somewhere on a mountain top and praise the east or something, but if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise and you learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains.”
Trouble is, the “compromise” is always, raise taxes. The government gets too much of the excess capital now, and that has lead to an anemic economy. Simpson was in Washington for far too long.
Yup, “compromise” has always meant we bend over and they shove it in. That from former Senator Half-a-Loaf.
Smart moderate republicans like Alan Simpson, have “compromised” us into $15trillion of debt in exchange for a freedom and economy destroying bureaucracy.
Good job Fellas!
We’ve worshiped at the alter of compromise for far too long, where we are right now as a nation is the sum of all those compromises in the past.
Used to be that if a community in trouble, be it in Louisiana or Latvia, needed our help, we COULD help. As individuals, I remember this country opening up our wallets and hearts to help hurricane victims in Louisiana and also sending CARE packages to Eastern Europe in the ’50s. We did that as individuals many, many times. As a country, we also provided care and shelter to victims of natural disasters. Now, our ability to help ourselves has been diminished by the stupidities of the government and the “elites” of government. Not only at an individual level but from government to peoples.
It is time to say good riddance to those elites and start putting our house in order. There is a whirlwind coming and we really do need to batten down the hatches. If these idiots cannot understand this, then it’s time to throw them overboard.
If these RINO’s would only think about what they’re saying. They’re saying in effect, that the conservative message resonates with enough people to get a RINO kicked out. The poor RINO has no one to blame but himself. Compromise too much with the libs, slice off another piece of America and send it down the liberal rat hole and the people might get a bit PO’s at you. If the RINO’s goal is simply to stay in power, then represent the ones that gave it to you and enjoy it.
Yes, it’s all that Grover Norquist’s fault. He has the nerve to sticks to his principles. How unrealistic.
The most prosperous period in our modern era began with the tax rate and regulatory REDUCTIONS initiated by Ronald Reagan and the economic windfall from that strategy lasted for over 20 years, even surviving the Clinton administration, thanks to Gingrich and the republicans in the House. But for some strange reason, we simply cannot do what was enormously successful in the past.
The only black spot on Reagan’s economic record came when he agreed to compromise with democrats on spending increases in return for additional tax reduction. He kept his end of the bargain and they didn’t. That’s the definition of “bipartisanship” on Capitol Hill.
We know what works and we now know what obviously doesn’t work. Reducing tax rates and regulatory burdens works. Raising taxes and increasing regulation and bureacracy clearly does not work. And so the answer to the equation is………raise taxes???
How does one compromise when it comes to abortion? Slavery? Spending this country into bankruptcy? Not only is Simpson a RINO, he appears to be somewhat of an idiot as well.
Simpson confuses Purity with Loyalty.
When Reagan compromised it was last, after wringing everything he was looking for out of an issue. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty and he signed amnesty, other times he was betrayed and the promised spending cuts never matarialized. But you always knew he was loyally fighting for his position BEFORE he compromised.
With folks like Simpson, they open up with compromise and give up more from there. (See the 100 billion in cuts from the Continuing Resolution battle of February 2011 for an example of how this Compromise First concept works.)
We are not looking for Purity – we are looking for Loyalty!
He has stated the case for his defeat more eloquently than any of his detractors ever could.
Grover Norquist in white robes on a mountainside? That tells you far more about Simpson than it goes about Norquist.
When I think of Grover a different image comes to mind. I think of him approaching a few of us local gophers volunteering at the RNC’s Truth Squad at the 1996 Democrat Convention and asking us if we wanted to help him with a fun project. He’d gone and purchased hundreds of Clinton/Gore stickers and an entire case of specimen jars. We slapped the stickers on the caps of the specimen jars and helped him pass them out around the convention site. The Chicago cops found them hilarious.
It’s purist, not “purest”. If Simpson wrote that you need to [sic] purest.
By the way, if Norquist is wrong (on the tax rasing), how about you tell us whose taxes are going to be raised first and by how much?
See what I mean?
Simpson and his ilk reach across the aisle to embrace liberal legislation because that prevents “gridlock.” Liberty lovers should embrace gridlock because it prevents tax increases and additional govt regulations. If I were president, gridlock would be the hallmark of my administration.
Simpson reached his dotage years before he retired from Congress. A contributing factor was the swelling of the brain caused by more that 6 months in the U.S. Senate. The pressure that results causes even an empty vessel like Simpson to think of himself as a “Statesman.” Contempt for voters who don’t agree with his positions is inevitable.
I think he’s right about Norquist. He opposes even elimination of special interest tax breaks & subsidies on the grounds that elimination of same constitutes a “tax increase.”
By his third term, Al was well within the POOP (Pernicious Obsolete Old Party) elite. If memory serves, after that third term he was off to the Kennedy School of Government. VOTE AGAINST INCUMBENTS ,that is our term limits.
Alan and Dick Lugar need to get a room together.