CNN’s Fareed Zakaria challenged Grover Norquist’s opposition to tax increases during an interview on Sunday:
“This is all rhetoric, Grover. You’ve got a plan as a practical matter. As I said, Clinton raised taxes, he got growth. Bush had the biggest tax cuts in a generation, and he got the weakest growth in 30 years. All I’m saying is as a matter of practical planning for the fiscal future of the United States your answer can’t be, well we’ll have stronger growth. Yeah, if we grow at 6%, we don’t need to do anything. Everything is solvent, right? But I can’t wish for that. We’ve got to plan realistically.” …
But economic data just doesn’t back up Norquist’s claims. Analyzing data from the last three decades, the Center for American Progress’ Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden found that investment, productivity, employment, and overall economic growth were all stronger during the 1990s, when America took a decade-long hiatus from supply-side economics, than they were in the 1980s and 2000s.