Grover Norquist: Paul Ryan 'Hero' for Budget Deal

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist commended Congress’s recent budget agreement, saying it is a “good deal.” 

According to Norquist, Wisconsin congressman “Paul Ryan is a hero. He made all the difference. He went up against the Democrats and came out with something good.” Norquist further said about the deal released on Tuesday: “The federal government will spend less than it did before. That’s pretty good.”

Conservatives have highly criticized the budget deal, saying that the budget cuts were “Mickey Mouse” in view of the nation’s 2013 deficit approaching $1 trillion and the overall national debt of over $17 trillion. Also, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reportedly has undermined the deal. He believes the budget still increases spending while only promising to reduce debt in the future. Cruz has not reviewed the entire deal due to traveling from Nelson Mandela’s services in South Africa. A spokesman for Cruz told The Hill on Wednesday, “We shouldn’t sacrifice the modest 2.4 percent spending cuts already in law in exchange for a mere possibility of future reductions”. 

Moreover, in an exclusive op-ed to Breitbart News, Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio expressed his dismay with the budget deal, saying that it threatens the American Dream. “This budget continues Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions by spending more money than the government takes in and placing additional financial burdens on everyday Americans,” Rubio declared. 

Norquist has consistently undermined the tea party and Cruz for their efforts to squash Obamacare, claiming that fighting against the Affordable Care Act has hurt the Republican Party.   

Norquist confessed in an interview on the The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV that Americans will have to pay an additional $11 billion dollars in Transportation Security Administration (TSA) fees over the next decade. When host Steve Malzberg asked Norquist if this was indeed a tax, Norquist replied that in Washington, that which “smells like a tax and acts like a tax,” according to the CBO, doesn’t always score like a tax. But when pressed by Malzberg, Norquist agreed that the fees were “not voluntary and it looks a lot like an excise tax.” Norquist went on to say that he finds the TSA fees troublesome and said, “I really want to see an effort to replace those with straight spending cuts.” 

The ATR president did give credit to the Tea Party for bringing the sequester to the Republican party, which he referred to as “one huge crown jewel.” “The spending limits that the president was forced to agree to in August of 2011, not only with how much you spend one year, but 10 years,” was beneficial, according to Norquist.