Posted on 11/29/2007 2:55:43 AM PST by Kurt Evans
Since January, the Club for Growth has attacked Governor Huckabee's credentials as a fiscal conservative. The first salvo came with the release of their white paper, "Is Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee a Pro-Growth, Economic Conservative?" ... CFG used the paper to slander the Governor's record and deceive numerous trusting conservatives. Even more surprisingly, journalists have accepted the CFG's claims without question, even though more than 80% of the "analysis" consisted of out-of-context news clippings...
The Arkansas constitution ... requires that the state budget be balanced. More than 90% of the state's budget is spent on education, Medicare, prisons, and human services. Naturally, cutting spending is always the first response of conservatives, as it was for Governor Huckabee. But that solution is inadequate when there is a shortage of elasticity in the budget. Unable to resort to deficit spending (as other candidates are able to do), the Arkansas Legislature was forced to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure repair, conservation efforts, court-mandated education expenditures, and federal mandates.
... Governor Huckabee fought for an $80 million tax cut package in 1997 that was passed by the Arkansas Legislature; cut the state capital gains tax in 1999; and passed the Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights in the same year ...
According to the Cato report ... "The $80 million tax cut package was enacted in 1997 and became the first broad-based state tax cut in more than 20 years. It increased the standard deduction, eliminated the income tax 'marriage penalty,' and indexed the state tax brackets to inflation." ...
Governor Huckabee has signed Americans for Tax Reform's Presidential Taxpayer Protection Pledge which states he will "oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses ... and oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates." ...
The tax burden during his time in Arkansas was better than under Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. Likewise, his record on spending was better than that of Mayor Giuliani, who increased spending more than his Democratic predecessor. So why was Governor Huckabee singled out as inconsistently conservative?
The reason is that one of the CFG's biggest donors and organization officials is a longtime political rival of Governor Huckabee.
In August the Club for Growth began running attack ads in Iowa ... Salon.com found after checking disclosures through the IRS that the ads had been paid for by "a Little Rock neighbor and political rival of Huckabee's named Jackson T. 'Steve' Stephens Jr." ... Stephens has contributed over $1 million to CFG.
The Club for Growth needs to be banned or suspended.
oh just because they attack rinos?
Fiscal matters are hard enough without having to bring in satellite issues (like immigration or trade) frucking up the scores.
My lub for Growth score: F in Ftupid.
well if there was an immigration score, Huck would also get an F
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense deserve SEPERATE scores, considering the size of those programs and the nuance and complexity with fiscal spending.
Even spending and taxes need to be seperated into different categories to be graded on.
Club for Growth tries to merge a whole bunch of issues together with duck tape.
well if there was an immigration score, Huck would also get an F
*******************
Club for “GROWTH” They love immigration. Legal or not. Permanent or temporary.
Am I wrong? Huckabee raised taxes every year for eight years. His violent crime went up. His state got nowhere. It seems exceptionally short-sighted to willy-nilly go for not one tax increase but multiple tax increases. It looks exceptionally hapzard with little planning.
And it matches the knee-jerk reaction, desperate embrace of the “fair tax”. Huckabee had a whole year to plan out a realistic tax policy. Instead he grabbed the fair tax activists for the Iowa straw poll.
I will not vote for Giuliani and I will not vote for Huckabee.
http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10179986
—snip—
Take trade. Mr Huckabee calls himself a free-trader, but on the stump he does not sound like one. He rouses nativist crowds by fretting that America cannot be secure unless it is self-sufficient in food, energy and military hardware. “I don’t want to see our food come from China, our oil come from Saudi Arabia and our manufacturing come from Europe and Asia,” he says. “There is so much foolishness in that one sentence it is hard to unpack,” comments Rich Lowry, a conservative columnist. America hardly imports any food from China. Mr Huckabee’s promise of energy independence within 10 years is impossible. And cheap imports benefit precisely the cash-strapped folk Mr Huckabee purports to champion.
Mr Huckabee’s tax plan is as radical as it is ill-thought out. To achieve a populist goal—abolishing income tax—he proposes a federal sales tax. To make up for lost revenue, it would have to be a stiff one, and levied on practically everything. Mr Huckabee says a rate of 23% would suffice, but this is a sleight of hand. Calculated the way sales taxes usually are, the rate would have to be at least 30% and possibly much higher. This would be horribly regressive. Mr Huckabee says he can solve that problem by giving monthly rebate cheques to those who need them. But to track Americans’ income month by month would require a bureaucracy nearly as intrusive as the one Mr Huckabee hopes to abolish by repealing the income tax. The plan is a non-starter.
—snip—
I actually read the article, they gave Huck high marks but his rival Stephens is a big donar to CFG so thats why they are smearing Huck, However as far as I know Stephen is/was never a politician but he is far more conservative than huck. I think all CFG is concerned with is taxes so huck did pretty good there, they dont rate illegal immigration lol
I agree on the Club for Growth. Their comparisons were bad. They tried to mix national, state and city policy. The problem still stands. Huckabee’s record when looked at completely is less than stellar or a mark of mind capable of tackling problems.
yes but they still don’t like Huck. so that tells you something
Wait - an 80 million dollar tax cut on a budget of 10 billion? A less than one percent tax cut in a time of record income is something to crow about?
And please - more conservative than Mitt Romney or Guliani? So’s my cat, what of it?
Sorry, Huckster, no sale here. The excuse ‘the budget made me do it’ has been way overused in California.
But Reagan tried.
Huck wants to subsidize food (see http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=23)
yet he’s concerned about obesity. This way he gets to be an agrisocialist and a Huckananny at the same time!
That was pretty good. But you forgot LittleAmericanist. He opposes free trade too.
I’m in favor of free trade and against the Fair tax, which Huck also supports.
Same here. And I am amazed at the traction these socialist throw-back positions are getting among the Christian right.
Interesting how even reporting the facts these days is considered a smear. Huckabee is a tax and spend RINO.
it’s BusHastertitis. everything went downhill after Reagan and Newt
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