During a discussion on the looming fiscal cliff, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) joked that he hoped anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist drown in a bathtub.

Near the end of an interview with MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Simpson said that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had trouble negotiating a budget deal because members of his own party refused to compromise.

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“He’s got 70 guys who didn’t go to Congress to limit government, they came there to stop it,” he said. “So how do you deal with guys who came to stop government or Grover wandering the earth in his white robe saying he wants to drown government in the bathtub. I hope he slips in there with it.”

Norquist told The Nation in 2004 that his goal was to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” His Americans for Tax Reform pledge has been signed by nearly every Republican member of Congress, though some Republicans have recently said they were not bound to it.

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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