Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler feels the need to defend Grover Norquist and his quest to cut gtovernment in his Nov. 27 Newsmax column:
Rather than focus on how to reduce government spending, Democrats and many in the media are busy demonizing Grover Norquist and his pledge politicians agree to sign promising never to raise taxes.
In their effort to portray the president of Americans for Tax Reform as sprouting horns, Norquist’s critics rarely mention what is behind his crusade. While Norquist believes we are paying too much in taxes, it’s not because he has an ideological aversion to supporting legitimate government functions. Rather, he believes that in too many cases, we are paying for waste.
Kessler quickly moves on to denigrating government workers:
As noted in my story The Real Problem With Government Spending, those of us who have dealt with the federal government for decades have an impression that in most agencies, half the workers could be cut without impairing output or services.
Lacking a profit motive, workers in the government by and large have a different work ethic from those in private industry. When they could make one call, federal workers take a meeting. When they could find an answer on the Internet, they form a study committee. Instead of appointing one supervisor, they appoint five.
To be sure, there are exceptions. FBI agents, CIA officers, and the military work incredible hours and risk their lives to protect us. But even within those agencies, there are unnecessary levels of supervisors and support staff who could perform their work in half the time.
Only when you are self-employed do you fully realize how much more efficient you become when your output directly correlates with how much money you make. But instead of looking for ways to save money, government agencies actually look for ways to spend more near the end of the fiscal year so Congress won’t reduce their outlays in the next budget year.
Then it's back to defending Norquist with warm and fuzzy anecdotes about his family, slobbering over his wife, and revealing that he's so close to Norquist that he can't be objective about him:
Nor does Norquist fit the caricature of the right-wing nut the media and Democrats have conjured up. Married to Samah Norquist, a Muslim Palestinian born in Kuwait, Norquist stands up to those who portray all Muslims as terrorists.
Every year during the Islamic month of Ramadan, Norquist co-hosts Iftar, when Muslims break their fast. The inter-denominational event is held at the Alexandria home of Rafat (Ray) Mahmood, a Pakistani ambassador at large. The other co-host is Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of Homeland Security. Chertoff is Jewish; his father is an orthodox rabbi.
At the last Iftar, I was honored to be asked by Norquist to talk about my Newsmax story quoting former FBI Director William Webster denouncing as “morally wrong” those who portray all Muslims as threats, thus undercutting the war on terror.
Besides being gorgeous, Samah is, according to Norquist, “very good on taxes.”
Does Ann Romney know that Kessler is cheating on her with Norquist's wife?
