Norquist: Leadership Needed on Smarter Defense Spending

Last week, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist appeared in Foreign Policy's The Cable to discuss the war between defense hawks and budget hawks in Washington. Can the two become allies in the endeavor for smarter, more efficient defense spending? As long as conservatives remain opposed to tax hikes, they just might. From the article:

 "You will get serious conversation from the advocates of Pentagon spending when they understand ‘here's the dollar amount, now make decisions," Norquist said. "They want to argue you have to raise taxes -- you can't solve the problem."

Norquist vowed to fight any effort to use the money saved by tax reform to pay for military spending or to avoid the sequester.

"You have guys saying ‘can we steal all your deductions and credits and give it to the appropriators,' and then when we get tax reform there will be no tax reform," Norquist said, referring to defense hawks. "The idea is that you are going to raise taxes on people to not think through defense priorities."

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TAGS: Spending