The president will be on a 'very short leash, fiscally speaking,' Norquist said. Norquist's war plan for the GOP

Anti-tax hike crusader Grover Norquist on Thursday outlined a strategy for Republicans to fight President Barack Obama in the new Congress.

“Jan. 1st is not the end of the fight,” Norquist said on C-SPAN. “It’s the beginning of the fight.”


Norquist, whose comments came in reference to the looming fiscal cliff — automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that will kick in next year if a deal is not reached — said Republicans have key leverage points over the president.

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“Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years,” he said. “He’s not going to have any fun at all, he may just have to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won’t be any fun to be here, because he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to.”

Norquist outlined tactics at the GOP’s disposal for challenging Obama and the Democrats.

“Republicans have three tools,” he said. “One: the sequester. The Democrats fear sequester more than Republicans because it actually reins in spending.”

Next, he said, is the upcoming debt ceiling vote.

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“It will have to come up every month or so as Obama keeps hitting that ceiling,” Norquist said of the nation’s borrowing limit. “Republicans can raise it a little or a lot, or for a month or for six months. That gives them discipline as it did in 2011 to require spending restraint.”

Norquist cited other budget fights from earlier in this legislative session, as examples of how Republicans have fended off spending increases — the third tool the GOP can use.

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“Because the Senate doesn’t do its job, because Harry Reid plays politics instead of governing, they haven’t got a budget,” he said. ‘They do a continuing resolution … they still have to vote to allow that money to be spent, which means the House of Representatives has to agree to continue the budget. What they did in 2011, for about a month or two, they said, ‘We’ll extend the continuing resolution for a few weeks if you save four billion dollars.’

“We’ve got lots of things Obama claims to be for and we will make — we, the Republicans in the House and Senate — will make him actually make those spending restraints in order to get the continuing resolution out a week, two weeks, a month,” Norquist added.