The latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek features excerpts from an interview with Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Among the topics are tax reform and Paul Ryan.
When you talk about growth, many people who are primarily interested in growth worry about cutting spending too much. It’s the austerity vs. growth debate.
Absolutely. That’s why you need to do tax reform at the same time. It’s what Reagan did with tax reform early on, reducing marginal tax rates and then the ’86 tax reform. But the necessary part of that is to keep spending from spiraling out of control, and particularly allowing entitlements, as the American electorate ages, from eating up more and more of the general economy. …
… Is Paul Ryan the ideal candidate for you? Does he better articulate the views of Grover Norquist than anybody out there, in terms of personal philosophy and economic philosophy and fiscal policy?
He has it all. The one challenge for Republicans is there’s an embarrassment of riches on the bench. You have Scott Walker, who has done back flips in the state of Wisconsin, turning that state around economically. You have Bobby Jindal, who is an expert on all sorts of things starting with health care, governor of Louisiana. Rick Scott in Florida, who’s turned his state around and made some very real steps forward. You’ve got half a dozen governors— Chris Christie—that are doing very, very interesting things. There were such a number of people that you could have chosen that it’s very interesting.
