Fox News Turns On Mike Huckabee And Tries To Kill His Presidential Campaign

PoliticusUSA - Real Liberal Politics ^ | May 24, 2015 | Jason Easley

[2ndDivisionVet]

Fox News has decided that Mike Huckabee should not be the Republican nominee, so Chris Wallace went on the attack against Huckabee’s flat tax plan on Fox News Sunday.

Video:

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

CHRIS WALLACE: You want to abolish the income tax. You want to abolish the IRS and create a fair tax, which as you say is a national sales tax, but critics say the problem with that is that it’s too regressive. The Tax Policy Center said this, that “the average rate for the lowest income group would exceed 33% while the average rate for the top group would fall to less than 16%.” The argument, Governor, is that the rich, who spend less of their income, are going to end up making out pretty well on this, and the poor, who spend almost all of their income, are going to end up paying the most or at least the highest percentage.

MIKE HUCKABEE: They have it exactly wrong. In fact, it is the bottom third of the economy who benefit the most from the fair tax, and the people at the top third of the economy benefit the least. Although, everybody benefits some. That tax study is one that has been discredited.

WALLACE: Sir, doesn’t it just stand to reason that if I make five thousand dollars, I am going to spend a larger percentage of my income just for the necessities than if I make a million dollars I’m probably not going to spend as much of a percentage of my income because I’ve got more money.

Wallace followed up by going after Huckabee for his suggestion that if he is elected president he would not follow Supreme Court ruling that he disagreed with.

Huckabee’s fair tax argument was completely backward. Repeated studies have shown that the flat tax would only benefit the rich because investment income would be tax-free. Unless the consumptive tax is around 60%-70% the numbers don’t add up, and the pre-bate that Huckabee and other Republicans are so fond of would be bigger than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Fox News has two different ways that they treat their candidates. Favored presidential candidates get interviews full of open-ended questions that allow the interviewee to look good. Candidates who Fox has decided should be cut off at the knees get more challenging questions, and key parts of their platform criticized.

Chris Wallace didn’t go after Huckabee on the flat tax because Fox suddenly cares about poor people. Wallace was trying to kneecap Huckabee to raise doubts with voters, especially in Iowa, about Huckabee’s electability. Fox News already has their favored Republican presidential candidates in Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio.

A recent study by Bruce Bartlett revealed that Fox News is harming the Republican Party by brainwashing their viewers. Fox News is trying to turn their viewers against the flat tax, which is a way of making sure that the presidential campaigns of Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson go absolutely nowhere.

In other words, Fox News tried to kill Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign today.

[MN_Mike]

Not a supporter of Huckster at all. And I noticed that Huckster didn’t answer the question:

Are you saying President Huckabee might decide he wasn’t going to obey the ruling on desegregation or President Nixon to turn over the tapes? That it’s up in the air whether you are going to obey the Supreme Court?”

Huckabee replied, “I want to get back to the main point. It’s a matter of balance of power.

[Jonty30]

I don’t receive Fox news, so.I cannot comment on that

However, I will say that I want our side to be tough on our candidates. It prepares them for the worst during the actual campaign.

[FredZarguna]

Sorry, I can't agree.

There is nothing whatever wrong with asking difficult questions, and a serious presidential candidate -- particularly one pushing for something as unfamiliar to most people as the Fair Tax should welcome them.

If you know your subject matter and believe in it, a tough question is one you're prepared for and is an opportunity to hit one out of the park.

As yet, I see no evidence that Wallace would not be asking Hillary the same kinds of questions. He has been tough on Democrats, including and certainly not limited to, Bill Clinton in the past.

Huckabee is a stalking horse for Jeb Bush. But even if he is not [and especially if he is not], he needs to answer difficult, fact-based questions about his platform.

[FredZarguna]

"That it’s up in the air whether you are going to obey the Supreme Court?”

My biggest problem with GWB was not the Iraq War, but with the opportunities he missed to make significant advances to the conservative cause. The Congress has the Article III authority to severely circumscribe the power of the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court.

To the question of whether the SCOTUS had authority to rule on the detention of foreign nationals held in Guantanamo, Congress passed a law saying quite clearly that it did not. The Supreme Court ignored the law and chose to rule anyway. Here's a case where Huckabee was right, where Bush missed an opportunity to reassert the suzerainty of the People of the United States, and failed. And it is also a case where Huckabee failed to press his point.

Bush should have made a clear statement: "Congress has leveraged its legitimate Constitutional authority over the Federal Courts in this case, removing their jurisdiction. Because I have sworn to uphold the Constitution, I cannot support this overreach of judicial authority; I will not enforce their ruling."

Instead, he acquiesced in a decision that neither he nor the Congress believed was correct. Huckabee could have used that as a case in point: the Court erred and the political branches should have prevailed.

[upchuck]

“the average rate for the lowest income group would exceed 33% while the average rate for the top group would fall to less than 16%.”

Therein lies the reason the Fair Tax isn't fair, even with the "prebate," which is too complicated to explain in a sound bite.

I am in favor of a flat tax where everyone pays the same rate and deductions are limited to only charitable contributions and municipal bonds with a cap on both.

[Jmouse007]

That’s “little jebbie”! I have no love for Huckleberry Hound, but even less for “little jebbie”. If the RINO, Country Club Republicans try to foist “little jebbie”, Crispy Cream Cristie, Illegal Alien loving Rubio, or any other of their useless, loser RINOS on us ....I will sit this one out. These guys HATE conservatives and everything their own base voters stand for! I refuse to be a manipulated pawn and “won’t be fooled again!” Hey Carl Rove and company; you can do whatever you want to. You and your cronies can “game the system” all you want just like you have in the past, BUT you can expect the same results: You will lose because your base, whom you despise will reject your candidate and stay home by the MILLIONS.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

They’re not even Christian conservatives in the traditional, rank and file sense.

They are control freaks, big gov’t statists who want fedzilla to control the masses, only from the Right.

Huckster is a fraud

[mjp]

any republican for the fair tax is a deal breaker for me

[2ndDivisionVet]

Huh? Why is that?

[arthurus]

The flat tax plan is the only thing that makes him interesting.

[arthurus]

Given our history the flat tax at a rate of 9 or10 percent with no deductions, no exemptions, no other modifications at all, on earned income only- no cap gains, no corporate taxes- would, if combined with the elimination of almost all business and work regulations and barriers and the elimination of all the regulatory agencies, would bring the biggest longest boom in history, even bigger if the money were stabilized absolutely.

But then that would disemploy a couple of million bureaucrats and force them to do something productive for a living and would drastically reduce the power a president can wield. It just wouldn't be worth it for Democrats or Republicans.

[varon]

Presidents, as well as all other government officials, take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not the opinions of Supreme Court.

[Vermont Lt]

Make it 10%. Even the idiots that will be out of a job can calculate 10%.

[etcb]

I am in favor of a flat tax where everyone pays the same rate and deductions are limited to only charitable contributions and municipal bonds with a cap on both.

There is often confusion between the fair tax and the flat tax with neither proposal lending itself to a sound bite discussion. While the flat tax is better than the one now in place, under any income tax, all money received is not considered income for tax purposes. For the person receiving all his money from salary or wages there is no question about what is taxable income but there is multi generational distribution of wealth that has excluded many from the joy of paying for government operations.

The fair tax is often critized as leaning too heavily on the low income person who is more likely to spend a higher percentage of his disposable income for the necessities of life, but the prebate is a relatively simple method to deal with that problem. As you stated, the prebate does not lend itself to a sound bite explanation but should not be dismissed out of hand. Another provision that gets little attention is that while taxes are levied on new items, it is not applied to used or resale items. An example would be a new automobile being taxed fully but a used one not taxed at all. With the prebate and used items not being taxed, a person, especially at the low end of the income scale, could actually supplement their buying power.

I favor the fair tax for a reason not ordinarilly discussed but one I consider very important for our society. Since illegals do not have valid social security numbers, they would not qualify for the prebate which all legal residents would receive and would thus no longer have the monetary advantage over legal workers that they and their employers now enjoy. Also, those who receive their income from illegal activities such as drug dealing and other crime would not be able to avoid the tax system.

At best, I consider taxes of any kind a necessary evil but one that everyone, whether ultra rich, dirt poor or anywhere between should be exposed to. Basing a tax on income, however collected, excludes far too many from the hard reality of the cost of government.

[woofie]

This is a BS opinion piece...I don’t care what the questions are ....a candidate can seize the opportunity to get his/her message across

[loveliberty2]

"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes." - Abraham Lincoln

[ladyellen]

I agree with you. He did it in 2008. I don’t understand why...

[American Constitutionalist]

Fox News is in the tank for Jebbie and Marco Rubio.

The gals on Fox News slobber all over Marco Rubio.

[Mister Da]

The stupid PoliticusUSA author apparently doesn’t know the difference between the Flat Tax & the Fair Tax.

The Fair Tax is a sales tax replacing the income tax. The Flat Tax is an income tax, a simplification of the current system.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Horrid, misleading article.

Watching the video is mandatory.

Agreed. Huck handled Wallace well. Wallace seemed bent on making Huck look bad.