Conservative anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist says the 20 Senate
Democrats facing re-election in 2014 will be the “hostages” who will
ensure that President Obama does not raise the Bush-era tax rates.
Democrats
have been talking tough in recent days about drawing a hard line on
extending the Bush tax rates only for families making below $250,000.
Sen.
Patty Murray (Wash.), the Democratic co-chairman of the 2011
deficit-reduction supercommittee, said Monday that Democrats would let
income tax rates rise across the board if Republicans refuse to drop
their opposition to raising new taxes. Senate Democratic leaders have
endorsed her declaration.
But Norquist thinks vulnerable senators up for re-election in two years will force Democrats to back down, as they did in 2010 by extending virtually all of the Bush tax cuts for two years.
“Last time Republicans won the House and [were] a little strengthened in the Senate and Obama folded completely. We’re going to be stronger this time than after last time; our hostages are the 20 Democrats up in ’14. We’ll send them either piece by piece or one at a time over to the White House to negotiate,” Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and author of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, told The Hill in an interview.
Click here to read more from The Hill.
