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.
We'll not even go into his social concerns and how he thinks he knows better for me than I do for myself. I'd sooner go fishing if this was the nominee
* 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).
“Right. And I’m a little green man from Mars”
Well, if you say so. Since I can’t see you through the web of cyberspace, I’ll take your word for it.
In Arkansas, the income tax when he took office was 1 percent for the poorest taxpayers and 7 percent for the richest, exactly where it stood when he left the statehouse 11 years later. But, in the interim, he doubled the standard deduction and the child care credit, repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate, expanded the homestead exemption and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition.
When he had to pass an income tax surcharge amid the drop in revenues after Sept. 11, 2001, he repealed it three years later when he didn’t need it any longer.
He raised the sales tax one cent in 11 years and did that only after the courts ordered him to do so. (He also got voter approval for a one-eighth-of-one-cent hike for parks and recreation.)
He wants to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS and institute a “fair tax” based on consumption, and opposes any tax increase for Social Security.
On second thought, I think you are lying about being from Mars.