A Candid Discussion with Grover Norquist on Big Government, His Critics, and Online Poker
By Rich Muny
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Rich Muny
Rich Muny, an engineer, lives with his wife in northern Kentucky. A long-time limited government conservative, Rich became active in grassroots Internet poker advocacy efforts while also becoming a prolific blogger on conservative-libertarian political issues. These efforts led to his being named to the board of directors of the million-member Poker Players Alliance in 2007. Rich is also a columnist for BigGovernment.com: http://biggovernment.com/rmuny
Follow Rich on Facebook: www.facebook.com/rich.muny
As the president of Americans for Tax Reform, author of Leave Us Alone, and long-time conservative activist, Grover Norquist has been an active warrior for conservatism since his Harvard days in the 1970s. True to the title of his latest book, Norquist’s brand of conservatism is one where the federal government simply stays out of the lives of the American people to the maximum degree possible.
Norquist is opposed on principle to government interference in the lives of Americans. It does not matter if that interference comes from the left or the right — big government is big government. He would much rather protect our values from big government than entrust big government with them. While this appeals to almost all conservatives — in fact, that’s why many conservatives ARE conservatives — this has recently gotten him into a public spat with someone within the movement who prefers more government to address social issues.
Norquist and I recently sat down to discuss the spat, issues of excessive taxation, big government, the online poker issue, and the future of the conservative movement.
Grover Norquist and Rich Muny at CPAC 2010
Rich Muny: The GOP platform still calls for the party to support banning and prohibiting online poker. Censoring the Internet right now probably isn’t a popular thing. Do you think that’s a position the GOP should rethink in terms of its party platform and leave it to individual legislators to decide what they want to do?
Grover Norquist: Yes. Look, if people want to play poker, they should be able to play poker. If you think it’s bad for somebody to play poker, you should go tell them that, but you shouldn’t use the state to go interfere with somebody else’s decision if they want to play poker or not. There are millions of people who do play poker online and it’s not a good idea to interfere with how people nonviolently interact with other people.
It’s entirely possible that it cost the Republican Party one House seat in [former Iowa Rep. Jim] Leach’s seat, who was defeated, having been the lead sponsor of that bill [the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act]. So, I think it’s not good politics. It’s not good policy, but it’s also not good politics to run around telling people how to run their lives. That’s something Democrats should do. It’s not something Republicans should do.
Rich Muny: It’s been noted by some that you have a libertarian streak regarding social issues. Tom McClusky, Vice President for Government Affairs of the Family Research Council, recently noted your support for online poker players and your libertarian leanings on some social issues. Do you feel the broader conservative movement is now moving away from big government regarding social issues and back to limited government across the board, with emphasis on fiscal issues, as it was back when Sen. Barry Goldwater was the conservative standard bearer?
Grover Norquist: I’m a little surprised by McClusky’s article, he wrote a little essay attacking me, because it didn’t make any sense and it didn’t mesh with reality. He says I’m not pro-life and quotes an article where when asked if I’m pro-life I said “yes”. He said I was demeaning the pro-lifers when that wasn’t true. So, I can’t speak for him other than to say he made no effort to talk to me and/or get reality-based thought into his essay.
In point of fact, the point I’ve made in my book Leave Us Alone is that this silly idea that there are three legs to the stool of conservatism: social conservatism, economic conservatism, and foreign policy — that misses what happens. What happens in the modern Republican Party from Goldwater through today, and what’s becoming more true as we move forward? The modern center-right movement is made up of people who, on their great moving issue, want to be left alone.
Now, what does that mean? That means, for gun owners, leave my guns alone. Now, is that a social issue? No, it’s a leave me alone issue. Taxpayers: leave my money alone. Businessmen: leave my business alone. Homeowners and property owners: leave my property alone. Pro-parents: leave my kids alone. Home schooling: the most radical pro-traditional values, pro-family movement in the country is the home schooler movement. Now, is that a social issue? Is it an economic issue? It’s just a freedom issue. It’s my home, you get off the lawn!
In ’78, ’79, and ’80, the traditional values movement got organized. Why? Because Jimmy Carter was going after Christian schools, trying to take away their tax status, and after Christian radio stations with the FCC. They wanted to be LEFT ALONE to raise their own families and run their own lives. So, the traditional values conservatives recognize that the state is a threat to their ability to raise their kids, raise their families, and educate their children as they see fit. So, there isn’t this conflict that some like to see.
Now, there’s an odd whining that one hears. “Oh no. How come the Tea Party people are all talking about economics?” Well, what’s changed in the last three years? There’s been an assault of massive spending, a series of tax increases, and massive regulatory regimes. People are reacting to Obama’s assaults on the liberties of the American people, largely financial in terms of their business lives. When government gets big, it threatens everybody everywhere.
So, people are reacting to what Obama’s doing. We’re all talking about government taking over health care, government taking over the energy sector, and government taking over the banks. What does one expect us to be talking about? That’s the assault that’s taking place.
So, I think that people whose main concern is practicing their faith and raising their kids want to be left alone to do that. I think people whose main concern is their business world, and by main concern I mean the thing they vote on…. Somebody can have twenty concerns in life. The question is, “what are you voting on?”
Rich Muny: As a follow-up, one of the top vote getters in the Liberty and Freedom section of the GOP’s America Speaking Out site is a submission in favor of poker rights. It was made by 2004 WSOP Champion and Poker Players Alliance Board Member Greg Raymer, whom you met at this year’s CPAC convention.
Grover Norquist: The one with the crazy glasses? He’s a great American.
Greg Raymer at CPAC, diligently signing
autographs as folks in line wait for their turn
- Rich Muny: Absolutely. He’s a great guy and a great American.
Modern conservatives seem to be focusing on this “leave us alone” embrace of limited government ideals and not so much on using big government to push social issues. In fact, it seems many conservatives are far more interested in what goes with their own families and businesses than what goes on in their neighbors’ homes and bedrooms. As you said a moment ago, they simply wish to be left alone.
Do you feel they realize big government in one area invites big government for all areas, and do you believe the conservative movement will be able to stay focused on limiting the power of the federal government if it regains power?
Grover Norquist: I think the Tea Party movement has certainly made it clear that people see larger government per se as a threat. Now, people can look at the blob coming down towards the city and fear for different things, but everybody knows that when the blob hits the city, everybody gets whacked. When the government gets big enough and has more power, how they wield that power will be bad for everybody in the country, but clearly and obviously will be bad for everybody in the center-right coalition.
This government is so big that runs public schools. What do you think they’re going to do? Do you think they’ll let you have control over the education of your child? No, they’re not going to. In the public school, teachers’ unions fight against school choice. They fight against home schooling.
The most important socially conservative traditional values parental rights victory around is home schooling and school choice. I’m on the board of the parental rights organization Campaign to Fight for the Parental Rights Amendment, which says parents have the right to raise their own children. That is a leave us alone to be parents movement, which is central. It’s one of the most important traditional values, socially conservative movements and institutions in the country. I think it’s a central battleground. Who gets to raise kids, the state or parents? Parents should.
Rich Muny: Family Research Council’s Tom McClusky claimed that you are supporting taxes in supporting online poker rights. How do you respond, especially given that his organization has repeatedly sought laws banning the untaxed offshore online poker sites that currently serve millions of American poker players every day?
Grover Norquist: That makes no sense. I don’t support increasing taxes.
Rich Muny: Americans for Tax Reform has been the leader in the fight against excessive taxation and government growth since its inception in 1985. How is the fight going today and how do you see it progressing over the next few years?
Grover Norquist: Well, we came together in 1985 at the request of President Reagan. Our goal was to help pass the Tax Reform Act of 1986, taking the top federal income tax rate down from 50% to 28%. During that campaign, I created the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which Reagan endorsed in the ‘86 election, asking all candidates to sign a pledge never to raise taxes and never to allow income tax rates to creep back up again. That worked well. The first year we got 100 House members and twenty Senators to take the pledge.
In 1988, all the Republican presidential candidates except for Senator Dole took it. When Dole won the Iowa race but then was asked in the New Hampshire debate if he would take the pledge, Pete DuPont handed him the pledge. Dole recoiled like a vampire being shown the cross. At that point, frankly, New Hampshire was the one state where everybody would know what the Taxpayer Protection Pledge was, because that’s where I got the idea from. New Hampshire had the Tax Pledge which meant, in New Hampshire, no sales tax and no income tax at the state level. It was there where tax pledges had meaning at the state level.
I grew up in Massachusetts. Having watched, I said, “we should do that at the national level.” Now, later, people know what the Taxpayer Protection Pledge is nationally, but at that point the one place where people did know about it was New Hampshire. So, Dole lost the New Hampshire primary and went on to lose an election he has been winning before that.
So, Bush won the primary because of the pledge and Dole lost because he refused to take the pledge. Then, Bush said, “read my lips…,” took the pledge at the national level, and won the general. Two years later, he broke the pledge and lost a perfectly good presidency. You know, he did a pretty good job except for the tax increase.
So, that really strengthened the pledge. Going into ’92 and ’94, that’s when I started getting about 95% of all the Republicans running nationally to take the pledge.
This year, I think, every Republican who might possibly win in the general in the House has taken the pledge. There are one or two we haven’t gotten to who might yet win a primary, but there aren’t any we don’t think we won’t have.
I’ve got everyone running for the Senate now, with the exception of Mike Castle of Delaware, who has not been a pledge signer as a House member — one of the few — and John Hoeven of North Dakota. Otherwise, all the Republicans who could win in November in the Senate have taken the pledge.
We have more governors taking the pledge this time around than ever before. All the Republican candidates in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, California, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania have taken the pledge. We’re doing very well with governors, which is a very strong statement to make at a time when the economy is poor and revenues are not just flowing in. It was pretty easy for somebody to take the pledge in 1998 as a governor. It’s tougher this time around. What they are really announcing is, “I am going to be cutting spending, guys.” That’s what that says. That’s a pretty tough comment.
So, the pledge is going well. It’s stronger than it has been for a long time, particularly at the state level. That’s the big shift. Since ’92 and ’94, we’ve gotten most or all House and Senate candidates at the national level. This time around, we’re doing very well with governors as well.
Rich Muny: Are any Democrats signing the pledge? How about those in Republican districts?
Grover Norquist: We don’t get too many pledge takers from Democrats. I mean, this is the issue that separates Republicans and Democrats more than any other. Sen. Ben Nelson from NE signed the pledge, but broke it when he voted for health care which included tax increases. A couple of House incumbents have taken the pledge as well.
This is the big difference between the two parties, more than abortion or guns. A whole bunch of people vote pro-gun and pro-life, or promise to, but there are almost no Democrats who run as anti-tax increasers.
Rich Muny: You’re on the NRA Board of Directors. I’m a Life Member myself. Can you comment on your feelings on the two big gun rights Supreme Court cases, McDonald vs. Chicago and the Heller case in D.C.?
Grover Norquist: Over the last decade, political support for the Second Amendment has grown. I have a Wall Street Journal front page article from 1993 that was all about how attacking gun rights was a popular position to take. Since then, the vote on the Brady Bill, the vote on the assault weapons ban, the pro-gun movement, the number of people with concealed carry permits, the number of people who are for or against gun control — all moved in the right direction. We got 60 votes in the Senate saying that you cannot sue gun manufacturers out of existence – a very important win.
But we’re always worried about the courts. You know, two 5-4 decisions. The Supreme Court has said — a 5-4 decision for the self-evident, that’s scary in itself — the Second Amendment means what the Second Amendment says. The government can’t regulate your right to own a gun. That’s progress.
Rich Muny: What’s your forecast for November? Do you think the GOP takes a chamber of Congress or even both?
Grover Norquist: Right now it looks like the Republicans will capture the House, strengthen in the Senate, and pick up quite a number of governors. It looks like a very good year for Republicans.
I do not see what could change that. Obviously, the world is an uncertain place, but if Democrats have some secret plan, some October surprise… If the Democrats knew that they were going to bring X number of dollars in from the unions and flood the zone, that’s the sort of information they would have told Stupak and Obey when they were begging them to stay and run for reelection. And yet Obey and Stupak and Biden’s son, who’s a statewide elected official in Delaware, all of them looked at the best information Democrat consultants had. They had the best arguments for how and why the Democrats could do well in November, and they decided not to run.
I see generally conservative Republican taxpayer polling. I talk to conservative Republican taxpayer pro-gun owner institutions. I think we’re doing well. But the Democrats, when they sit in their bunkers and look at their information, they run for their lives! I don’t know what’s in the polling they’re looking at, but it doesn’t sound cheerful for them.
I don’t see what turns it around. The vice president’s son can’t be convinced that the wind might turn to his back. He has the best information available to somebody on the left, the best promises. You know, the president is willing to do X for you, and still says to himself, “okay, and I still don’t think it will work.”
Rich Muny: Now that you’ve had time to reflect and observe, has your opinion on the banking and auto industry bailouts changed at all? Has it turned out better or worse than you had imagined at the time?
Grover Norquist: It’s still a stupid idea.
Rich Muny: I thank you for your time. Most appreciated.
Grover Norquist: You’ve got it.
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