San Jose, CA – July 30, 2011 – In an exclusive interview with bestselling author and host of The Costa Report, Rebecca Costa, founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), Grover Norquist, claimed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge was never an obstacle to the House, Senate and White House reaching a budget compromise.  According to Norquist the simple solution was to uncouple tax reform from spending limits.  Norquist said, “We have a spending problem.  So take taxes off the table and do tax reform separately at a different place and time.”

Norquist believes the debt emergency was caused by numerous attempts by the White House to propose budgets which married increased spending with new taxes.  Norquist explained that the Congress rejected these budgets numerous times - warning the White House they would not accept any budget which contained new tax initiatives.  Yet, since February, all White House proposals included new taxes.  As a result, the clock began running out - eventually culminating in partisan grandstanding and last minute wrangling.

When asked by Costa whether Norquist was in favor of an interim proposal which temporarily raised the debt limit, Norquist said that he would support a short-term compromise.  “The President wants two and a half trillion dollars of additional authority to borrow, which, coincidentally, gets him past the next election.  (But) this problem is exactly what the election is about and we ought to be looking at this problem when we’re voting.  (Candidates) ought to be saying: I’d like to run the country for the next four years, and here’s how I would handle this problem.”

As the Republican Congress, Democratic Senate and the White House met in the final hours before the August 2^nd deadline, the President of Americans for Tax Reform remained steadfastly optimistic that a last minute deal will be struck in spite of allegations that ATR’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge would prevent pledge-signers from supporting a bi-partisan compromise. At the present time 336 members of the House of Representatives, 41 Senators, 13 Governors and 1,247 State Legislatures have signed the Taxpayer Protection Plan.

About Grover Norquist

Grover Norquist founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985, at the request of President Ronald Reagan. Norquist worked on the staff of the Republican Platform Committee in 1988, 1992 and 1996 and was one of the co-authors, along with Newt Gingrich, of the 1994 Contract with America.  He served as an economist and speechwriter for the United States Chamber of Commerce and is on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association of America, American Conservative Union and The Nixon Center.  Norquist has authored two books: Rock the House and Leave Us Alone- Getting the Government’s Hands off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.   He received his Bachelors degree in Economics and his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University.

 About Rebecca D. Costa   www.rebeccacosta.com

Rebecca Costa is a sociobiologist who offers a genetic explanation for current events, emerging trends and individual behavior.  A thought-leader and provocative new voice in the mold of Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell and Jared Diamond, Costa examines “the big picture”– tracing everything from terrorism, crime on Wall Street, epidemic obesity and upheaval in the Middle East to evolutionary imperatives.  Retiring at the zenith of her executive career in Silicon Valley, Costa spent six years researching and writing The Watchman’s Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction.  The success of Costa’s book led to a weekly radio program in 2010 called The Costa Report. A former CEO and founder of one of the largest marketing firms in Silicon Valley (sold in 1997 to J. Walter Thompson), Costa developed an extensive track record of introducing new technologies.  Her clients included industry giants such as Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Oracle Corporation, Seibel Systems, 3M, Amdahl, and General Electric Corporation.