Gourt Home::Gourt :: Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform is an interest group seeking to reduce the overall level of taxation in the United States, at the federal, state and local level. Its founder and president is Grover Norquist, an influential Republican lobbyist; critics charge that the group is little more than a non-profit front for his partisan political activities.
Members include Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, and Richard Scaife.
Background
Americans for Tax Reform was founded in 1985 by future Attorney General Bill Barr to organize grass-roots support for President Ronald Reagan's 1986 Tax Reform Act. Grover Norquist was offered the title of director.
Money from Abramoff clients
Connections to Jack Abramoff
According to an investigative report on convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's lobbying, released in June 2006 by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. *
In 1996, the Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client, donated $60,000 to ATR to oppose a tax on Indian casinos. The funds continued; in 1999, Norquist moved $1.15 million in Abramoff client money to Ralph Reed's for-profit political consulting company, Century Strategies, and to anti-gambling groups working to defeat a state lottery in Alabama. The money routing was deliberate: in one email reminder to himself, Abramoff wrote: "Call Ralph re Grover doing pass through."
ATR kept a percentage of the funds that passed though the organization. In May 1999, Norquist asked Abramoff "What is the status of the Choctaw stuff?", in an email. "I have a 75g hole in my budget from last year. ouch." Abramoff eventually grew annoyed at the amount that ATR retained, e-mails show: "Grover kept another $25 k!" Abramoff wrote in a February 2000 note to himself. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/24/AR2006062401080_3.html
On May 9, 2001, Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas met with President Bush, with Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist in attendance. Days before the meeting, the tribe paid $25,000 to Americans for Tax Reform at Abramoff's direction. According to the organization's communications director, John Kartch, the meeting was one of several gatherings with President Bush sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform. On the same day, the chief of the Louisiana Coushattas also attended an Americans for Tax Reform-sponsored gathering with President Bush. The Coushattas also gave $25,000 to Americans for Tax Reform soon before the event.
The details of the Kickapoo meeting and a letter dated May 10, 2001 from Americans for Tax Reform thanking the Kickapoos for their contribution were revealed to the New York Times in 2006 by former council elder Isidro Garza, who with Raul Garza (no relation), is under indictment in Texas for embezzling tribal money. According to Isidro Garza, Abramoff did not say the donation was required to meet the president; the White House denied any knowledge of the transaction.
See also
External links
Tax reform | Taxation in the United States | Political advocacy groups in the United States | Jack Abramoff scandals | New Right (United States)
"Americans for Tax Reform"