Posted on 10/24/2007 11:25:36 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
I don't. Anyone is entitled to a mistake. It's the cumulative effect of his false statements and flip flops. The quote you sited wasn't from Ann Coulter, BTW, so I don't know why you're dissing her. Kill the messenger just in case? lol
Maybe BillyBoy can answer our question AuntB:
Mike Huckabee is a conservative because:
Please feel free to fill in the blanks, we are all listening. I’ll even give you a head start...
1. He is pro life
2. He is pro 2nd Amendment
The rest is up to you. Let’s hear it. There are dozens of issues on the conservative GOP platform. Pick some. Any.
No more slippery pigs from Arkansas!
The “New Man From Hope” was enough for me to forget about him!
Like we’re not pissed already?
No more Clinton clones!
So are you on the we wish Mike well and we’ll see you at your retirement party ping list or not?
Huckabee gets those 2 issues right but he is wrong on lots else.
No, but feel free to add me if you like. : )
Bingo!
We’re not interested in quantity. We are interested in quality.
Folks who can explain to fellow FReepers who are fiscal conservatives, pro-border and anti nanny state why Huckabee is a train wreck.
Is Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee a Pro-Growth, Economic Conservative?
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 (Arkansas Times 09/22/05), but he only offers a small piece of the picture.
It is true that Governor Huckabee fought for an $80 million tax cut package in 1997 that was passed by the Arkansas legislature (Cato Policy
Analysis No. 315, 09/03/98); cut the state capital gains tax in 1999 (The Commercial Appeal 02/29/99); and passed the Property Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights in the same year, limiting the increase in property taxes to 10% a year for individuals and 5% per taxing unit (AP 03/16/99). However, his record over the rest of his ten-year tenure tells a starkly different story.
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 (Cato Policy Analysis No. 315, 09/03/98).
He supported an internet sales tax in 2001 (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07).
He publicly opposed the repeal of a sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002 (Arkansas News Bureau 08/30/02).
He signed bills raising taxes on gasoline (1999), cigarettes (2003) (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07), and a $5.25 per day bed-tax on private nursing home patients in 2001 (Arkansas New Bureau 03/01/01).
He proposed another sales take hike in 2002 to fund education improvements (Arkansas News Bureau 12/05/02).
He opposed a congressional measure to ban internet taxes in 2003 (Arkansas News Bureau 11/21/03).
In 2004, he allowed a 17% sales tax increase to become law (The Gurdon Times 03/02/04).
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 (01/07/07), 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” (Washington Examiner 09/13/06), even though objective evidence demonstrates that the Bush tax cuts have actually shifted the tax burden to higher income taxpayers.
Finally, Governor Huckabee opposed further tax cuts at a 2005 gathering of Iowa conservatives (AP 09/17/05). On January 28, 2007, Governor Huckabee refused to pledge not to raise taxes if elected President, first on Meet the Press and then at the National Review Conservative Summit. The evidence suggests that his commitment to protecting taxpayers evidenced in his early gubernatorial years may be a thing of the past.
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 (Americans for Tax Reform 01/07/07).
The number of state government workers rose 20% during his tenure (Arkansas Leader 04/15/06), and the state’s general obligation debt shot up by almost $1 billion, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
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 (Arkansas News Bureau 04/13/06).
These large increases in government borrowing and spending significantly impede economic growth.
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2007/01/a_report_on_mike_huckabees_fis.php
*******
In a press release issued, former Governor Mike Huckabee took issue with the Tancredo campaign’s characterization of him as a pro-amnesty politician. Unfortunately for the Governor, the facts support the label.
Fact #1. As Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee denounced an immigration bill (Arkansas Senate Bill 206) that “would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote and would have required state agencies to report suspected cases of people living in the country illegally.”
(Doug Thompson, “Immigration Bill un-christian..governor says”Arkansas News Bureau 1/28/05)
Fact #2. As Governor, Mike Huckabee offered a proposal to give state funded scholarships and state benefits to illegal aliens.
(Laura Kellams, “Huckabee Plan would give aid to illegal aliens” Arkansas Democrat Gazette 1/12/2005)
Fact #3. Governor Huckabee supported a Bush-backed immigration plan that provides a path to citizenship for some illegal aliens.
(CNN 2008 Election Center, http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/candidates/mike.huckabee.html)
Fact #4. Governor Huckabee refuses to sign the “No Amnesty Pledge”.
The Governor is suffering from what is called “amnesty amnesia”. It is a contagious ailment spreading rapidly through the ranks of the Republican presidential candidates.
Watch Huckabee admit to selling out our citizenship to illegal aliens. He thinks it’s not amnesty, but illegal aliens still get the grand prize: citizenship.
You would be a good one to write to the FRC to educate them on their darling Huckster. I wrote to Schlafly a short while ago. Dobson, Perkins, and many more members should be contacted very soon. Time is growing short!
Actually, Mike Huckabee would be an excellent VP for Hillary Clinton. He is no conservative. He just promised Arkansas a new slave bank in his pro-illegal alien stance. Even said as much!
3. Huckabee is a great speaker. Needs a church.
Last year's, this week's, or next year's? The man spins like a weather vane in a tornado.
Glen Beck seems to be totally taken in and schmoozed by Huck Version 4.0.
Good old Glenn needs to ne set straight pronto! You can do it best, Trav!
Those guys get thousands of emails a day, and have a squad of flunkies whose job it is to scan and delete them.
Your post about Huckabee’s record in Arkansas and his naive statements on immigration finish him as a possible presidential candidate as far as I’m concerned. That and his comment in one of the debates that if people wanted a president who would be “mean” to people they shouldn’t elect him. How does he define mean? Is dropping a bomb on Bin Laden’s head too mean for Homily Huckabee?
This guy’s syrupy, sanctimonious schtick combined with his endless supply of jokes and one liners in the debates almost cover the fact that he usually says nothing of much substance. To top it off, he’s a graduate of some obscure Bible college. Put this guy up against the Clinton machine? Somebody’s nuts.
Well I suppose that lets me out!
I’m not good at converting people, I just agree that he would be a train wreck for being the “New Man From Hope”(reminds me of Clinton)and his pandering to illegals.
That’s more than enough reason for me not to give him my vote.
When’s the pop quiz?
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