Free Republic

We stopped paying for government three months ago. Tax Freedom Day was April 23rd. That's when the average American effectively finished paying taxes to government at all levels. But only the average American. Anyone living in a high-tax state, such as Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, had to work another couple weeks for government. But taxes are a poor measure of the total cost of government. Because of sizable and persistent deficits, total public spending is a better standard of what we pay for government. Even that isn't enough, however. Regulation adds another substantial charge to the bill. Americans...

A former California Republican Party official who resigned last year in a controversy over his immigration status had no valid visa or work permit during his high-profile career as a Washington lobbyist for conservative icon Grover Norquist..... Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who served briefly as chief operating officer of the state GOP, worked from 1995 to 2000 as a vice president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., an organization headed by Norquist - an architect of modern conservatism who has advised President Bush and top GOP political leaders. For Norquist, Kamburowski lobbied Congress on dozens of issues,...

Among the 2008 presidential field, all but two of the Republican candidates -- Sen. John McCain and Fred Thompson -- have made a written commitment to the American people promising to oppose and veto income tax increases. McCain signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge as a candidate for president in 2000, and has signed and kept the pledge as a senator. For two decades, Americans for Tax Reform has asked all presidential and federal candidates to commit to their constituents, in writing, to oppose any and all efforts to raise income taxes. On the presidential level, every Republican nominee since Ronald...

All In the Family by: Bethany Stotts, December 07, 2007 .... A new report released by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) reveals that American political nepotism extends not just through the executive branch, but throughout Congress. The report showed that of the 535 Congressional seats (Senators and Representatives), 50 Members had relatives who served as Senators, Representatives, or Governors. The ATR report identified 15 members, 13 from the House and 2 from the Senate, who gained their seats immediately following their relatives’ resignation, retirement, or death. Of these “legacy” Congressional seats: • Four seats were inherited by widows...

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...

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...

Reform Group: Thompson Would Hike Taxes Thursday, November 8, 2007 3:05 PMBy: Ronald Kessler When it comes to taxes, Fred Thompson is the "worst" of the Republican presidential candidates, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, tells Newsmax. GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have both promised not to raise taxes - Romney even signing an ATR pledge not to raise the marginal tax rate. Thompson, on the other hand, has not signed the pledge and has said high-income Medicare beneficiaries may have to pay more for coverage. “Thompson didn’t sign the pledge as a senator, and...

Alec "the Bloviator" Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist. The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to perpetuate bald lies about the Patriot Act and to oppose the "repressive" War on Terror (repressing terrorist suspects apparently being a bad thing). Baldwin and Norquist's panel, titled "Strange Bedfellows," was sponsored by the ultraliberal group People For the American Way. When PFAW head and panel participant Ralph Neas ranted about the lack of judicial and congressional oversight of the Justice Department's terror investigations, the audience...

Please note that Romney, Brownback, and Hunter are not even on this list from last year. Romney only signed after he heard the call of poltical expediency.

The holidays can sure tax one’s patience, but that’s the only tax the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform want to see this holiday season (or at any other point during the year, for that matter). That’s why its annual holiday card puts tax cut advocates and tax cut enemies into “Naughty” and “Nice” lists. Those who made the “Naughty” list this year are guilty of being one of the following: “Tax Increase Advocate” or “GOP Non Taxpayer Protection Pledge Signer.” And those lucky enough to land on the “Nice” list did so because they are either a “Democrat Taxpayer...

With less than a week left to suggest names for two new elementary schools in Colorado Springs School District 11, a national group is making a pitch for residents to name one of the schools for the late President Reagan. The goal of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is to have schools and other facilities named after the 40th president, whom it credits with ending the Cold War and turning the economy around in the 1980s, said Grover Norquist, chairman of the project and president of Americans for Tax Reform. John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., each have...

The I.R.S. said yesterday that it saw a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by charities and churches in the last election cycle, a trend that it aims to reverse as the country heads into the midterm elections. The tax agency found problems at three-quarters of the 82 organizations it examined after having received complaints about their political activities, according to a report the Internal Revenue Service released. The infractions included distributing materials that encouraged people to vote for particular candidates and giving cash to campaigns. The agency said it was seeking to revoke the exemptions of three organizations but...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an institution. Now in its 32nd year, CPAC is the largest annual gathering of grassroots activists on the right. But when it comes to co-sponsors, CPAC and its parent group, the American Conservative Union, are keeping strange company. CPAC always has a lustrous lineup of speakers. Ann Coulter, Oliver North, George Will, Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) and Vice President Cheney all addressed this year’s conference. For the most part, the panel discussions and workshops were informative. Increasingly, CPAC is becoming a youth conference -- demonstrating the movement’s vitality. Of the 3,500 or so...

GEORGE SOROS’ INFILTRATION OF CPAC STATEMENT FOR THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD CONGRESSMAN MARK E. SOUDER (IN-03) FEBRUARY 8, 2006 Mr. Speaker, George Soros, the radical liberal financier who dedicated himself to defeating President George W. Bush in the last election, has taken a lesson from Jack Abramoff. As much of Abramoff’s pernicious lobbying technique has come to light, we’ve seen how he was adept at manipulating certain conservative organizations to pursue a decidedly anti-conservative agenda, namely the promotion of gambling. By working hand in hand with the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), for example, he was able in 2000 to undermine conservatives’...

The Bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist Jack Abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an Abramoff client, newly filed court papers say. David Safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of Tyco International to Abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the General Services Administration, say the court papers filed Friday in a criminal case against Safavian. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud in a burgeoning bribery probe centered on Capitol Hill but also involving the Interior Department. The White House is refusing to release photographs...

He's BAAAAACK! Yup, Prince Alberta, newly relocated to the liberal mecca of San Francisco ensconsed in his new multi-million $$ condo, working in the venture capital field (all bad things when he was running for the WH) will today crawl out from under his rock to deliver himself of a major address about the "evils of executive power"

Leading Conservatives Call for Extensive Hearings on NSA Surveillance; Checks on Invasive Federal Powers Essential 1/17/2006 6:36:00 PM To: National Desk Contact: Laura Brinker, 202-715-1540, for Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, laura.brinker@dittus.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform...

Conservatives planning to attend Grover Norquist's popular Wednesday Group meeting tomorrow will be the target of a MoveOn.org protest outside Norquist's downtown Washington, D.C., office building. Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org Political Action announced the protest in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday morning. Norquist's meeting is attended by a broad range of Republicans. It starts at 10 a.m. "The group hosting the meeting—Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform—is at the center of the Republican power machine in Washington and has been implicated in the corruption scandals from lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Matzzie wrote in the e-mail. "But they still meet even after...

ALERT: This message is specifically for DC-area activists. Can you take some time out tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Jan. 18) to counter a particularly nasty left-wing protest? The socialist wanna-be's at MoveOn.org, together with some of their far-left friends, are holding a morning "protest" from 9:45-10:15am outside of the offices of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). Most Wednesday mornings, ATR hosts a meeting of conservative and libertarian activists, Capitol Hill staffers and usually at least one representative from the White House. MoveOn.org can't stand the fact that conservatives are able to utilize their First Amendment rights to "peaceably assemble" in this...

Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats. The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic...