I'm not making any excuses, I'm just telling you the facts of the Lake View case, where the court gave Huckabee virtually no choice in the matter. That was the political reality of the situation.
If we did things your way, Huckabee would have been found in contempt of court, with the possibility that the school system would have been forced to shut down for a while. That might be an acceptable outcome to you, but it isn't to the citizens of Arkansas.
lol. Where were you when the Mitt-bashers were blaming Mitt for court-ordered gay marriage, need that explanation that court orders arent to by defied...
I understand that the courts do this, but they ordered equity in funding not a general tax increase - as I said, I’ve seen it in other states and its all in how you handle the challenge. You can go the liberal way (raise taxes) or the conservative way (rework the budget to hold line on overall spending). So I wouldnt be hard on Huck if he tried other options and was left with no choice. But he DID have other, more conservative, choices than simply beg for more taxes. He would NOT have been held in contempt of court if he went in and said “Because of the education funding crisis, we have to make some budget cuts in the ArKids program.” or found other ways to keep spending in check so that the funding equity issue could be addressed while keeping the budget under control.
And btw, its not like this was Huckabee’s only tax increase so even if you forgive him for this tax increase, he’s on the hook for many more. He had a large number of them, which put together significantly increased the tax burden on the state.
Here in Texas Rick Perry and the Republican leadership faced a crunch the same year and found $10 BILLION in spending cuts over a 2 year period, to get us through the 2002 budget crunch. How did they do it? They did unpopular (with the liberal MSM) things like tighten eligibility for the Schip program (reup every 6 months instead of every year), slim funding of colleges, keep the general bureaucracy slimmer, cut where they could. What they did NOT do is raise general revenues. That is simply the WRONG way to go.
In Massachusetts, same deal, budget crunch - Mitt Romney made hundreds of line item vetos that cut almost a billion dollars, kept overall spending below rate of inflation. Government burden on the economy shrunk under his Governorship, and he used his veto pen alot.
For All Four Of The Fiscal-Year Budgets That Crossed His Desk, Governor Romney Used The Line-Item Veto Power More Than 800 Times. Over the course of four budgets, Governor Romney made over 300 line-item reductions, 350 line-item eliminations and struck language 150 times. (Chapter 26 Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Acts Of 2003, Governor’s Veto Message, 6/30/03; Chapter 149 Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Acts Of 2004, Governor’s Veto Message, 6/25/04; Chapter 45 Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Acts Of 2005, Governor’s Veto Message, 6/30/05; Governor Mitt Romney, Memo To The Senate And House Of Representatives Of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts; Fiscal Year 2007 General Appropriations Act Veto Items: Line Item Accounts, 7/8/06)
- Beacon Hill Institute Executive Director David Terck: “He Vetoed Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars In Spending.” WALL STREET JOURNAL’S PAUL GIGOT: “Was Governor Romney willing to use his veto pen to do that in Massachusetts?” BEACON HILL INSTITUTE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAVID TERCK: “He most certainly was. He vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars in spending.” (Fox News’ “Journal Editorial Report,” 3/31/07)
http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Romney_Record_Line_Item_Veto
The Huckabee record shows NONE of that kind of fiscal stewardship. He grew the state payroll bigtime, he grew the govt healthcare welfare program, etc. The shortfall in education was only $400 million. This is why Cato ranked him so miserably and gave him an F. NOBODY SAID GOVERNING CONSERVATIVELY WAS EASY. Huckabee, alas, didn’t even try. ... because he is NOT a conservative.