Rick Perry's New Sidekick, Grover Norquist

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., Mar. 9 2011 at 9:04 AM

Office of the Governor

Grover Norquist speaks on Tuesday at Manda Machine, along with Rick Perry. It's also nice to see The News's Gromer Jeffers doesn't let boring press conferences keep him from getting his Mardi Gras on.

As mentioned below, Gov. Rick Perry was in town yesterday -- at Manda Machine Company, on Myrtle Springs Road near Harry Hines -- insisting, yet again, that Texas need not tap the Rainy Day Fund to deal with the state's $27-billion-ish shortfall. You can watch the entirety of his speech here, and you'll see standing behind him the man you see above: Grover Norquist, founder and president of the Americans for Tax Reform -- and the man The Huffington Post only yesterday referred to as "the most powerful Republican in America."

Norquist, whose brief remarks at Manda Machine follow, is also considered by many to be the man who helped transform George W. Bush from Texas governor to United States president. From The Nation in 2001:

In November 1998, immediately after Bush was re-elected as Texas governor and began eyeing the White House, Norquist traveled to Austin to meet Bush and Karl Rove, Bush's political guru, whom Norquist has known for two decades. Norquist came away convinced that Bush, if not an authentic conservative, was at least the right's best hope. On five issues, he says -- tax cuts, school choice, tort reform, pension reform and paycheck protection -- Bush said the right things, and that was enough for Norquist. At the time, for most conservatives Bush was an unknown quantity, and his closeness to his father (whom Norquist excoriated in his book for faithlessness and errors of political judgment) made the right queasy. Others in the race, like Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer, all had appeal to the far right -- but Norquist, upon returning to Washington, started spreading the word that the right ought to line up behind Bush.

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Pete

Actuslly, Perry, as usual, waffled on whether he would tap teh Rainy Day Fund. Check out WFAA's story on his Dallas visit:Perry - who was given several opportunities - declined to say he would veto it if the bill comes to him. "I'm making it pretty clear I don't want people to spend the Rainy Day Fund," he said. Asked if that should be taken as a "no," Perry replied: "No, I take it as what I said. I have made it a fairly good practice of not saying I'm not going to sign a piece of legislation or veto a piece of legislation until it comes to my desk in its final form. I don't think it's fair to the process this far out."

Guest

Norquist is fine on tax reform, but he is an idiot when it comes to jihadi terror.

Someone should tell Gov. Perry to stay the hell away from Norquist until Grover gets his head out of the jihadi rear.

Likeicare

are we still paying Rick's $10,000/month rent?!

Montemalone

I wanna know who done burneded-down the mansion in the first place? Methinks Ricky just wanted to move to the burbs and a nice gated community, away from the hoi polloi in Austin.

scottindallas

I agree that we shouldn't draw heavily from the rainy day fund, particularly since it appears we will need to use it to buffer our system in the next budget cycle more than this one. So, I would be against drawing more than one billion from it, but we need to get our revenues pointed in the right direction.

Jay Hawk

Making cuts without generating more revenue (and/or using some of the rainy day fund) only ensures the same situation in 2013.

Lee

Do mean the Grover Norquist who had such a prominent role in the movie, Casino Jack, the story of Jack Abramoff? He appeared to be a prominent player in Abramoff's schemes that sent him to prison. SURELY our governor would not consort with such people!?!