Harry Reid attacks the Dark Lord Norquist

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., brought the Halloween spirit to the Senate floor yesterday with a tongue-lashing of Republicans for opposing President Obama’s jobs proposals and for keeping their pledge not to raise taxes.

Reid criticized Republicans for refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy — “That same one percent [of Americans who] makes more than the other 99 percent combined,” he noted in the language of the Occupy Wall Street protesters — and blamed them for the ongoing weakness of the economy.

By opposing President Obama’s job proposals, “Republicans have cost this country millions of jobs just in the last few weeks alone,” Reid said, asking “Why would they do that?”

He answered his own question with a melodramatic reference to Grover Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform:

Fear . . . Who do they fear? The truth is, they are terrified to violate the infamous Grover Norquist tax pledge, even though they know Norquist is wrong; or if they dont know they should know. They’re in a thrall, my Republican colleagues. They’re in submission to a man whose singular focus is keeping taxes low for the very, very, very wealthy no matter what the effect is on this nation. They fear his political retribution.

“Hey Harry Reid,” Norquist tweeted in response to an earlier criticism from Reid, “if I became a Buddhist monk and moved to the Himalayas, no pledge taker would help you raise taxes. They promised their voters.”

Reid also said on the Senate floor that “the only way out of the worst recession since the great depression is to invest in what this country needs — its workers to be employed.”

You can see video of him talking about Republican thraldom below.

Related Content