Politico: Rep. Gene Taylor Calls Anti-Tax Group 'Scum'

News Article

Politico: Rep. Gene Taylor Calls Anti-Tax Group 'Scum'

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) has called Grover Norquist's anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform "lying sacks of scum" for lumping him in with other moderate Democrats who support the House health reform bill.

"Americans for Tax Reform are lying sacks of scum, and anyone who knowingly repeats this false information is also a liar," Taylor said in an unusually blistering statement for a member of Congress.

The incident has so incensed Taylor, he's pointing out Americans for Tax Reforms past ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The Americans for Tax Reform release said Taylor had agreed to a "backroom deal" on health care.

Um, not so, said Taylor's spokesman Ethan Rabin.

"I am opposed to the current health care reform bills being debated in Congress," Taylor says on his website. "We should not create an expensive new government health program or promise new government health benefits when we have not figured out how to pay the future costs of Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and other federal health programs that were promised by previous Presidents and previous Congresses."

Taylor is a Blue Dog and several members of the economically conservative coalition on the Energy and Commerce Committee did sign off on a deal with Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to move the health care bill out of the committee, Rabin said. But Taylor isn't even a member of the committee, and he hasn't changed his view of the bill.

"ATR took that little piece of information about Blue Dogs and applied it across the 52 member delegation," Rabin said. "They did no fact checking. They did no research. They did not contact our office. They just sent that out."

Americans for Tax Reform did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source