Politics & Power Quote by Grover Norquist

Norquist’s line is memorable because it’s not really a budget plan; it’s a threat dressed up as a mission statement. “Cut government in half” could have been framed as efficiency, reform, even libertarian restraint. Instead he reaches for an image of drowning, in a bathtub no less, dragging the whole idea of public administration into the realm of the intimate and the violent. The metaphor works the way political branding works: it turns an abstract debate over programs and tax rates into a visceral act, one you can picture in a second and repeat at a rally in five words.

The intent is twofold. First, it’s a loyalty test. If you flinch at the brutality of the image, you’re not serious enough about shrinking the state; if you cheer, you’ve signaled you’re on the team. Second, it redefines “government” not as a set of services people use (roads, schools, inspections, disaster aid) but as an enemy organism. The subtext is that democratic arguments about what government should do are beside the point; the point is to disable its capacity to do anything at scale.

Context matters: this is late-20th/early-21st century conservative infrastructure-building, where tax cuts aren’t merely economic policy but a strategic tool. Starve the revenue, then cite dysfunction as proof of inherent failure. The bathtub line is the slogan version of that strategy, gleefully indifferent to collateral damage, because in Norquist’s framework, the damage is the victory.