Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform—known as the "field marshal" for the Bush tax cut strategy—is an amazing man. On television in the wake of the publication of his latest book, Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives, Groverboy's chummy, we're-all-in-it together rap made it sound as if money wouldn't be tight for anybody if Washington would quit squeezing us for taxes.
But Grover wouldn't have the bankroll he has if it weren't for the government, and not just its essential services. A big-time lobbyist, he was a college friend of Jack Abramoff's, and channeled money from now-convicted Abramoff's Indian clients in the casino business, often taking such a chunk for himself that it irritated Abramoff.
Another of Norquist's friends and ex-business partners is David Savafian, a former procurement policy officer in Bush's Office of Management and Budget, who was convicted of lying to investigators to cover for Abramoff. Norquist and Savafian ran a lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, whose clients included the Pakistani government, the American Muslim Council and its founder, Abdurahman Alamoudi. The controversial Alamoudi was an advisor on Islamic affairs to the Clinton and Bush White Houses and a Pentagon consultant, but early in 2001 met in Beirut with members of al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad as well as Hezbollah and Hamas, groups he openly supports. In 2004 he pleaded guilty to taking part in a Libyan plot to murder Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. And Alamoudi is not Norquist's only Middle Eastern associate to have drawn the scrutiny of federal investigators.
In short, Norquist is hardly a populist, though his credibility as president of ATR depends on his sounding like one. In 1999 ATR fought to kill a Senate budget resolution declaring non-tax-deductible the payments the tobacco industry made to settle suits brought against it by the states. Why, wasn't the tobacco industry a taxpayer, too? asked ATR, claiming it was bound to defend Big Tobacco under its Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
