Posted on 03/01/2008 8:58:12 PM PST by Kurt Evans
Conservatives who find McCain unacceptable may want to consider supporting Mike Huckabee. Consider Huckabee's record as governor of Arkansas:
* Cut the state capital gains tax rate by 25%.
* Abolished capital gains taxes on home sales.
* Abolished the state marriage penalty tax.
* Pushed through the first broad-based tax cuts in decades, saving taxpayers nearly $400 million.
* Indexed income tax brackets to inflation, thus protecting taxpayers from being pushed into higher tax brackets by inflation.
* Doubled the child-care tax credit.
* Increased the tax deduction for single individuals to $2,000.
* Increased the tax deduction for married couples to $4,000.
* Banned illegal aliens from getting drivers licenses.
* Helped pass an unborn child amendment to state constitution.
* Helped pass a traditional marriage amendment to state constitution.
* Pushed through a property owners’ bill of rights that limited property tax hikes and protected homeowners from unfair tax assessments.
* Pushed through homeschooling-friendly legislation.
* Limited the increase in the overall rate of state spending to 4.9% (AFI)--not bad, considering that he was dealing with a Democratic legislature.
* Protected gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits.
* Removed restrictions on concealed handgun permit holders.
* Pushed through legislation that allowed the state to fire school boards and school superintendents in school districts that were chronically performing badly.
* When faced with a $227 million deficit for fiscal year 2002, refused to call for a tax increase and instead called for a massive cut in state spending.
Plus:
* Huckabee has signed the 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."
* He supports the Fair Tax plan.
* And he has signed the very tough Numbers USA pledge to secure the border and to oppose granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. Numbers USA gives Huckabee very solid ratings overall on his positions on illegal immigration and border security [link in post #2].
Yes, Huckabee did raise taxes overall, but he raised them for valid reasons, i.e., to pay for badly needed improvements to state highways and the state park system, and to hire more teachers (the state's population increased substantially during his tenure). Much is made of the fact that Huckabee opposed a voucher plan, but he did so at the urging of Christian private school associations that were worried that vouchers would open the door to state control of their schools.
Michael Medved has noted the following about Huckabee's fiscal record:
Meanwhile, it’s also worth a few lines here to defend the Arkansan from the claim that he’s a secret “big government liberal” or, in the phrase of the Club for Growth, “Tax Hike Mike.”According to figures from the non-partisan Tax Foundation (based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce), Huckabee’s term as governor (1996-2007) led to a modest increase in the overall State-Local tax burden for Arkansas: from 10.1% in the year he became governor to 11.1% the last year he served...
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, saw sharper increases in taxes during his single gubernatorial term (2003 to 2007) in Massachusetts. The state-local burden rose from 9.8% the year of his election to 10.5% his last year as governor...
These numbers don’t prove that Huckabee was a great governor, or that Romney was a poor governor... Both candidates deserve respect for doing a solid job in handling state legislatures with overwhelming Democratic majorities ...
Another way to answer the attack that Huckabee raised taxes overall is to say the following: Suppose there was a man that was called to be the president of a company. The company was $200 million in debt and his companies’ assets in equipment were one billion dollars less than his fifty other competitors. He decided to borrow $505.1 million to turn his company around. After ten years he was able to pay back $378 million on his investment loan. In addition, during the ten years he added one billion dollars in new equipment and improvements to his company. The most amazing accomplishment was that he left $844 million in cash in the operating account at the company. Now, would anyone say this man didn't do an outstanding job managing the company? Of course not. Well, this is essentially what Mike Huckabee did with the state of Arkansas.
Huckabee is more conservative than McCain on several issues, including McCain-Feingold, immigration, gun control, cutting taxes, abortion, and the federal marriage amendment...
Mike Griffith
Let Freedom Ring website
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id47.htm
An important factor to consider in evaluating Governor Huckabee’s record on taxes and spending is that the population of Arkansas increased approximately 14 percent while he was governor. Even including the spending addressed above, per capita state government growth there was roughly half the national average during that period.
The author of the above article happens to be a Mormon, not an evangelical:
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id58.htm
Numbers USA’s candidate assessments on immigration:
http://betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/prez2008.html
Republican Delegate Count:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/gopdelegates/index.html
Huckabee Issue Positions:
http://mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.Home
Curios, what is the point?
Huck cannot win just based on the numbers of delegates he needs, what is the purpose of all of this about Huckabee?
The sooner Huck masters arithmetic, the better.
McCain will be the nominee. Huck needs to get off the stage and stop making a fool of himself.
Gator tastes like salmon. Or so I’ve heard.
It would be much harder for him to make ends meet as president. The Huckster won’t be able to set up slush funds for people to “donate” for his upkeep, or use the White House accounts to buy fast food and nylons, or steal the White House furniture so he won’t have to furnish his house when he leaves office.
He would definitely give it the old college try, though. Those Arkansas governors are really good at graft and corruption.
IT IS TOO LATE, Rush Limbaugh is right, if you live in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island or Vermont and are allowed to vote in the Dem Primary pull the lever for Hillary to keep the soap opera going.
Or chicken. ;-)
Huckabee on “Hannity & Colmes” (transcript from Friday):
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979008/posts
Hunter sealed the deal. I went from supporting him ...
Kurt,
Quit lying for your candidate. We at FreeRepublic already know that he raised taxes a sum total of over 600 million dollars while governor.
Nope.
And now for his REAL RECORD:
Club for Growth Releases Updated Huckabee White Paper
http://www.clubforgrowth.com/2007/11/updated_huckabee_white_paper.php
Taxes
The Club for Growth is committed to lower taxes across the board. Lower taxes on work, savings, and investments lead to greater levels of these activities, thus encouraging greater economic growth.
Governor Huckabee touts himself as an economic conservative, writing in his biography that he “pushed through the Arkansas Legislature the first major, broad-based tax cuts in state history” and “led efforts to establish a Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” early on as governor,[1] but he only offers a small piece of the picture.
Immediately upon taking office, Governor Huckabee signed a sales tax hike in 1996 to fund the Games and Fishing Commission and the Department of Parks and Tourism.[5]
He supported an internet sales tax in 2001.[6]
He publicly opposed the repeal of a sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002.[7]
He signed bills raising taxes on gasoline (1999), cigarettes (2003)[8], and a $5.25 per day bed-tax on private nursing home patients in 2001.[9]
He proposed another sales take hike in 2002 to fund education improvements.[10]
He opposed a congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003.[11]
In 2004, he allowed a 17% sales tax increase to become law.[12]
By the end of his ten-year tenure, Governor Huckabee was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax in Arkansas, 16% higher motor fuel taxes, and 103% higher cigarette taxes according to Americans for Tax Reform,[13] garnering a lifetime grade of D from the free-market Cato Institute. While he is on record supporting making the Bush tax cuts permanent, he joined Democrats in criticizing the Republican Party for tilting its tax policies “toward the people at the top end of the economic scale,”[14] even though objective evidence demonstrates that the Bush tax cuts have actually shifted the tax burden to higher income taxpayers.
Spending
The Club for Growth is committed to reducing government spending. Less spending enhances economic growth by enabling lower taxes and diminishing the economically inefficient political allocation of resources.
Under Governor Huckabee’s watch, state spending increased a whopping 65.3% from 1996 to 2004, three times the rate of inflation.[38] The number of state government workers rose 20% during his tenure,[39] and the state’s general obligation debt shot up by almost $1 billion, according to Americans for Tax Reform.[40] The massive increase in government spending is due in part to the number of new programs and expansion of already existing programs initiated by Governor Huckabee, including ARKids First, a multimillion-dollar government program to provide health coverage for thousands of Arkansas’ children.[41]
These large increases in government borrowing and spending significantly impede economic growth.
FOR MORE, go to the link above.
This information reproduced from Club for Growth.
“We at FreeRepublic already know that he raised taxes a sum total of over 600 million dollars while governor.”
I at Free Republic definitely don’t know that. What’s your source?
Huckster’s no fool. He’s playing for publicity (= name recognition) and a paycheck.
Huckster’s no fool. He’s playing for publicity (= name recognition) and a paycheck.
Go Huck!
I wish I could say that with enthusiasm. Even though I am a Christian, and like Huckabee’s social conservatism, he is a bit too nanny state oriented for me, but still, he is twice the man McCain is. I wish him luck, even if it is at being a thorn in McCain’s side, just like McCain was to Bush.
The Club for Growth is overrated. They even support ILLEGAL immigration. Gotta have that cheap labor, ya know.
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