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In a recent 60 Minutes segment Grover Norquist said “the tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party.”  Norquist, head of the movement Americans for Tax Reform, takes a divisive, one-sided stance regarding this issue.  His organization’s website reads “Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle.”  Invoking the Tea Party on behalf of his cause, Norquist joins a long list of those who have attempted to highjack the founding principles of the United States.  And, like most others, he is similarly oblivious to the tenets of liberal democracy.

The header on the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation website is a sketch of the enraged Bostonians disposing of East Indian Company tea.  But Norquist and his organization make a critical error by drawing a connection between their efforts and those of the 1773 movement.  In reality, he has popularized an ideology that is antithetical to the Tea Party principles.

By dismissing the latter part of the phrase taxation without representation, Norquist ignores what was the heart of the upheaval, the lack of representative government in colonial America.  The irony here is obvious and thick.  Norquist’s organization shapes the tax reform debate on Capital Hill without any accountability to citizens of the United States.  ATR’s website lists 238 representatives of the 112^th Congress who have signed his pledge to “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and businesses”.  If Americans are angered by the gridlock in Washington, they need look no further than Grover Norquist and the nearly 55% of congress he has shackled with anti-tax dogma.

The First Amendment guarantees that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”.  Those who understand the value of free speech recognize it as a vital tool for defending against the infiltration of dogma in government.  Norquist’s pledge may not be a violation of the First Amendment but what is the difference between a law that prohibits representatives from proposing a tax hike and a pledge that accomplishes the same goal?  While good government requires the open debate of all political issues, there can be no doubt Norquist’s actions have had the effect of crippling the conversation on tax policy.  Dogmatic ideologies which need to be sheltered from scrutiny should be identified as suspect and forced into the light.  The Pledge is an act of institutionalized dogma.

As Steve Kroft noted, Norquist has Republican candidates coming and going.  He tells listeners that “it is difficult to imagine winning a Republican primary without taking the pledge.”  Once elected, they are faced with a stark position, vote down all tax increases or face a stiff challenge in the next election, an opponent with substantial funding from Norquist’s organization.  While more than half of Republican voters want wealthy Americans to pay more taxes, Congress remains in paralysis when it comes to balancing the country’s budget.  The obvious problem is that one of their key policy options is entirely off the table.

The morning of the Boston Tea Party a handbill was posted around the city which read “the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face.”  The American public are in the middle of similar standoff today, but in this case, the face staring back at them belongs to Grover Norquist.  An unelected, unaccountable citizen, he is shaping tax policy in the wealthiest liberal democracy in the world by institutionalizing anti-tax dogma.  The United States was founded with the principle of free speech to ensure the opportunity to debate all ideas, thereby avoiding the tyranny of any single political view.  There is no difference between taxation without representation and Norquist’s denial of taxation without representation.  Both prohibit debate, are forms of tyranny, and should be fought at all costs.  To resolve the current economic situation the United States needs a modern Boston Tea Party, and this time Grover Norquist and his pledge need to go over the side of the boat.