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.
The Club for Growth is overrated. They even support ILLEGAL immigration. Gotta have that cheap labor, ya know.
Thank you, and that is just one aspect of Huckabee’s record that is immensely troubling.
“By the end of his ten-year tenure, Governor Huckabee was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax in Arkansas ...”
When you read allegations like that, you probably ought to stop and say to yourself, “That sounds a little fishy.”
I read an article yesterday that refuted the Club for Godlessness “white paper” point-by-point. Nearly every sentence is a distortion. The CFG opposed Congressman Hunter too.