THE CONGRESSMAN AND THE LOBBYIST: PLEDGED TOGETHER FOR THE UPPER 1%

I, Peter J. Roskam, pledge to the taxpayers of the 6th district of the state of Illinois and to the American people that I will: ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.


Upon entering Congress in 2007, Congressman Roskam joined 237 other Congressmen, 236 of which are Republican, and 41 Senators, 40 of which are Republican, in signing conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist's Taxpayer Protection Pledge. It is more accurate to call this document "The Upper 1%'s Tax Protection Pledge" because it is solely focused on further redistribution of middle class wealth to the wealthiest Americans, to the detriment of the rest of society. While 26 million Americans seek full time work, 40 million Americans go without adequate health insurance, 45 million subsist on food stamps and 49 million fall into poverty, Norquist works tirelessly to shrink the social safety net to pay for endless tax relief so the most privileged can engorge their portfolios.

Amazingly, Speaker John Boehner, Roskam's boss in the GOP controlled House, has called Norquist, "some random individual" even though 55% of the House has pledged fealty to Norquist's infamous dictum: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub".

Next November, the 700,000 residents of the 6th district will be selecting a Congressman for the 113th Congress. I know how 7,000 of them are likely to vote. I wonder what kind of pledge and what kind of Congressman the other 693,000 will be thinking about when they enter the voting booth.