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Grover Norquist has never served an elected office.  He is the head of a taxpayer advocacy group "Americans for Tax Reform" and he is very wealthy. His political attitude is conservative in the extreme and he is largely responsible for the lower tax position of the republican party, in fact, some people say he owns the party. He is the one that is largely responsible for the obdurate position that the republicans assumed of no new revenue in the discussions about raising the debt ceiling which most economist say is necesssay as well a cuts in social programs to get the nations financial house in order. However, he got quite a few republicans to sign a pledge of no tax increases and now they are between a rock and a hard place because if the country goes into a downward spiral because the debt ceiling isn't raised it will be the republicans that are blamed. Even their biggest supporters (big business) are telling them to reach an agreement, but so many have signed his pledge that they feel locked in.