Grover Norquist quotes
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“I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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“All we have to do is replace Obama. ... We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Norquist: Romney Will Do As Told—David Frum". www.thedailybeast.com. February 13, 2012.
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“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Every time you cut programs, you take away a person who has a vested interest in high taxes and you put him on the tax rolls and make him a taxpayer. A farmer on subsidies is part welfare bum, whereas a free-market farmer is a small businessman with a gun.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“People are an asset, not a liability. The United States is the most immigrant-friendly nation in the world and the richest country in the world. This is not a coincidence. Those voices that would make us less immigrant-friendly would make us less successful, less prosperous and certainly less American.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "GROVER NORQUIST: Immigration Reform Is A No-Brainer For The Economy". www.businessinsider.com. April 25, 2013.
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“Being married is kind of like being a Ken-doll; you don't get to dress yourself anymore.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“I read murder mysteries. I exercise 40 minutes a day. I watch videotapes while I exercise. I listen to audiotapes when I am in my car. And I try to stay in three different centuries.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“This thought-provoking novel portrays the absurdity of our overbearing government bureaucracy with a story that is entertaining and fast-paced. The Taxman Cometh will become part of our national dialogue about taxes and freedom. And it’s funny as hell. Author Jim Greenfield is a cross between Ayn Rand and Monty Python. If enough people read this hilarious ‘man versus state’ book, the IRS will be put out of business, which is okay with me.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“Clinton and Obama practice this politics known quaintly as the Richard Speck strategy: if you cannot take on everyone in the room at once, take them out of the room one at a time.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“I want to reduce the size of government in half as a percentage of GNP [gross national product] over the next 25 years. We want to reduce the number of people depending on government so there is more autonomy and more free citizens.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Interest Groups Are Suiting Up for Tax Cut Battle" by Thomas B. Edsall, www.washingtonpost.com. March 11, 2001.
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“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Feingold Rides the Zeitgeist Over Eleanor Clift" by Digby, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 25, 2011.
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“Alexander Hamilton has been on the $10 since 1928, he's been well honored by the country, he was a great Secretary of the Treasury. But of all the people on the currency, the only one who isn't a president.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“When I became 21, I decided that nobody learned anything about politics after the age of 21.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Which idiot put the GOP convention the same time as 'Burning Man' in Nevada? Is there time to change this?”
-- Grover Norquist -
“My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit. Because that person doesn't need the ***** government for anything,”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Grover Norquist: The Soul of the New Machine" by Michael Scherer, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2014.
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“The RNC has made a concerted effort to work with their allies with a real focus on what we can do to equip candidates with the resources to win in 2014 and beyond. There isn't a week that goes by that I don't see someone from the RNC at our weekly coalition meeting. Keep up the good work.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“This always confuses liberals, that conservatives like the military and don't like the bureaucracy. That's because the military has their guns pointed out and the bureaucracy has them pointed in.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“If the Republican Party works with the Hispanic community, the immigrant community, they're natural allies. People who came to this country are more freedom-loving and more American than people who just happened to be born here.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“I know the activists I deal with, we sort of try and check each other to make sure that we haven't gone native, that you come to Washington thinking it's a cesspool, you don't want to end up thinking it's really a hot tub and getting used to it. So that's something one has to keep an eye on all the time.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“I run a taxpayer group - the most powerful guy in D.C., nonsense. OK? There are buildings with thousands of people in them, all lobbying for more spending and higher levels of spending and more government commitments. And there are a handful - a handful of groups that fight for less spending.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“I think it's very important to always make sure that you're talking to the entire coalition and to as many Americans as possible; not to go chasing after one little group or another. The Democrats would bring new groups into their party and not notice that larger groups are going out the back door.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Look, the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt ceiling. He has reached the debt ceiling before anyone expected.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Obama wants to take the individual small business tax to 44 percent, and the corporate rate - he says - down to 28 percent or whatever. But that really damages the small businesses. And it doesn't make us competitive. You got to take them both down to 20, because state and local corporate taxes are 5 percent.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“The question is: How do we reduce spending from 25% of GDP, which is where Obama put us? The focus is on total government spending. Can we bring it down, in a reasonable and politically acceptable way? That's what the Paul Ryan plan does. It puts us on a gradual reform path to reducing the size of government.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party. People say, 'Oh, Grover Norquist has power.' No. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform focus on the tax issue. The tax issue is a powerful issue.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Twenty-five years ago, I created the Taxpayer Protection Pledge at the federal level. Then I brought it to the state and local level. About 97 percent of the Republicans in the House and 85 percent in the Senate have signed on, and the number of candidates who have taken the pledge is even higher. It's become a party position.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012. And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Grover Norquist: The Soul of the New Machine" by Michael Scherer, www.motherjones.com. January 2004.
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“Government should enforce rule of law. It should enforce contracts, it should protect people bodily from being attacked by criminals. And when the government does those things, it is facilitating liberty. When it goes beyond those things, it becomes destructive to both human happiness and human liberty.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "15 Questions with Grover G. Norquist". Interview with Rebecca F. Elliott, www.thecrimson.com. November 18, 2010.
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“The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit. The deficit is the symptom of the disease.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Grover Norquist: 'The goal is to reduce the size and scope of government spending, not to focus on the deficit'". Interview with Ezra Klein, www.washingtonpost.com. March 9, 2011.
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“I was an anti-communist before I was political in other ways.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "15 Questions with Grover G. Norquist". Interview with Rebecca F. Elliott, www.thecrimson.com. November 18, 2010.
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“The future of the Republican Party, all the different folks looking to lead the Republican Party at the national level in the future, recognize we should do immigration reform,”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“Less government, less regulation, lower taxes.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“We don't need someone who can think. We need someone with enough digits to hold a pen.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“There are a number of people who won't be president in 2009, and Mark Warner is one of them.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“Spending is not caring. Spending is what politicians do instead of caring. Spending more does not guarantee success. Politicians like to measure spending because it is easier than measuring actual metrics of accomplishment.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "Grover Norquist vs. the Pentagon". Interview with Michael D. Ostrolenk, www.theamericanconservative.com. October 24, 2012.
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“It's the Democrats whose position is that the only probÂlem in Washington, D.C., is the peasants aren't sending enough cash in for the king to spend.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“They tax when you earn a dollar, they tax you when you save it, they tax you when you invest it. If you earn a dividend, they tax it again, and if you're stupid enough to die, they steal up to half.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals - and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship.”
-- Grover NorquistSource : "The Great Wealth Shift Upward: Corporatists’ War on the Working Class" by Michele Swenson, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 4, 2011.
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“I don't think Republicans will be fooled into taking this necessary spending and using it to oppose pro-growth tax cuts, using this tragedy and those deaths for his own political desires.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“We will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Could I ask if there’s anything in between Step One and Step Two? ‘Oh ye of little faith.’”
-- Grover Norquist -
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“No Republican could expect to win the GOP nod after betraying his party's rank and file.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“The statists want to control the economy.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“The Democratic Party might be called the Takings Coalition, made up of groups that want the government to take from American citizens -- usually cash -- and keep it for itself.”
-- Grover Norquist -
“Well, certainly the Democrats have been arguing to raise the capital gains tax on all Americans. Obama says he wants to do that. That would slow down economic growth. It's not necessarily helpful to the economy. Every time we've cut the capital gains tax, the economy has grown. Whenever we raise the capital gains tax, it's been damaged.”
-- Grover Norquist -
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