Norquist: I didn't hear any boom

Charlie Rose allowed Grover "Drown it in the bathtub" Norquist to get away with the claim that the record surpluses created during the Clinton presidency was the result of the Republican-controlled House passing a cut on the capital gains tax.

I guess he didn't notice the enormouse boom in the tech sector. A boom which created an entirely new market and in turn created jobs and taxable income. A boom driven not by tax cuts, but a leap forward in technology and a concentration of intellectual capital.

Government subsidies in the research in universities and in tech companies combined with a policies that drew foreign students to study in the U.S. played a major role in positioning the U.S. to take advantage of the leap.

Using Norquist's assertion, you could just as easily say that the tax cuts encouraged reckless investment leading to the tech bubble.

Norquist's anti-tax crusade is little more than a political crowbar to beat Republicans into line. Overtaxation does occur, but a greater problem is misuse of funds. Cutting back on multi-million dollar pork projects for Republican House members would free up more money for effective programs thus make room for some tax reductions.

- Murphy