Posted on 02/19/2007 7:44:33 AM PST by PhiKapMom
By Deroy Murdock/Syndicated columnist
Sunday, February 18, 2007 - Updated: 12:40 AM EST
By Deroy Murdock
The Republican primary's most accomplished supply-sider is the all-but-announced Rudolph W. Giuliani. Having sliced taxes and slashed Gotham's government, New York's former mayor is the leading fiscal conservative among 2008's GOP presidential contenders.
Before Giuliani's Jan. 1, 1994, inauguration, New York's economy was on a stretcher. Amid soaring unemployment, 235 jobs vanished daily within the city. Financier Felix Rohatyn complained: "Virtually all human activities are taxed to the hilt." Punitive taxes helped fuel a $2.3 billion deficit.
Mayor-elect Giuliani sounded Reaganesque when he announced he would "reduce the size and cost of city government" to balance the budget. In his first State of the City address, he said: "We're going to cut taxes to attract jobs so our people can work."
Giuliani spent eight years keeping these promises.
Giuliani cut or killed 23 levies, saving taxpayers $9.8 billion. Giuliani pared Gotham's top income-tax rate by 20.6 percent. Washington, D.C.'s CFO reported that between 1993 and 2001, local taxes on a family of four New Yorkers earning $50,000 fell 23.7 percent.
Giuliani cut the commercial-rent tax, curbed sales taxes and curtailed the marriage penalty on taxpaying couples. Giuliani proudly shaved Gotham's hotel tax from 6 percent to 5 in 1994. Consequently, that tax's revenues soared from $135 million in fiscal year 1995 to $239 million in 2001.
Giuliani defends his supply-side instincts with bracing candor. Asked after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center towers whether he would hike taxes, Giuliani called that "a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do."
Giuliani's expenditure growth averaged 2.9 percent annually, while local inflation between January 1994 and December 2001 averaged 3.6 percent. His 1995 fiscal year budget decreased outlays by 1.6 percent, while his post-9/11 2002 plan lowered appropriations by 2.6 percent.
If President Bush had followed Giuliani's example and limited Washington's spending to 2.9 percent average, annual growth, the just-unveiled fiscal 2008 federal budget would cost $2.275 trillion, not $2.9 trillion, saving taxpayers $625 billion, the Cato Institute's Stephen Slivinski estimates. Such Giulianian fiscal discipline would generate a $386 billion surplus, not an anticipated $239 billion deficit.
Giuliani repeatedly privatized municipal assets. Giuliani sold WNYC radio for $20 million, WNYC-TV for $207 million and Gotham's share of the U.N. Plaza Hotel for $85 million. Divesting the New York Coliseum excised an eyesore from Columbus Circle and added $345 million to city coffers. Giuliani also let the private Central Park Conservancy manage Manhattan's fabled urban forest.
These eight years of tax reduction and fiscal responsibility helped hammer unemployment from 10.4 percent in 1993 to 5.7 percent in 2001. Simultaneously, personal income advanced 53 percent.
It's hard to compare a two-term ex-mayor, a one-term governor and a four-term U.S. senator. Nevertheless, Cato's 2006 gubernatorial report card gives former Massachusetts chief executive Mitt Romney a "C." While the top personal tax rate fell 6 percent on his watch, thanks to a referendum voters approved before he arrived, Romney's first budget raised $140 million by closing corporate-tax loopholes. It also featured some $501.5 million in increased fees, including higher marriage licenses (from $4 to $50), pricier gun permits ($25 to $100), a $100 biannual fee for volunteer firefighters (rescinded under pressure), and a $10, previously free, ID card that lets the blind ride Boston public-transit gratis.
Few in Congress expose outrageous federal boondoggles as fervently as does John McCain. However, he is an ambivalent tax fighter. According to Club for Growth research, McCain opposed President Clinton's 1993 tax increases and supported his 1997 capital gains tax cuts. He also voted to extend President Bush's 2003 tax cuts. For 2005, McCain earned a 78 percent National Taxpayers Union rating an "A."
Unfortunately, McCain opposed President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. McCain voted against repealing the Death Tax in 2002. Also, in 1998, McCain embraced former South Dakota Democratic Senator Tom Daschle's motion to approve Big Tobacco's Master Settlement Agreement, including a $1.10-per-pack cigarette-tax increase.
"I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues," McCain conceded to Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore. "I still need to be educated."
Ping List please!
Rino Rudy is unelectable, he will split the party.
Thanks for posting this article about one of the best fiscal conservatives in the party.
And speaking of the party, I'm headed out in a few minutes to our monthly GOP meeting. Sen. DeMint will be speaking today and I'll be interested to take the pulse of the party faithful with regard to Rudy.
Tag! You're it.
…most of Clintons Policies are very similar to most of mine... Rudy Giuliani 1996
On AbortionI’ve said that I’ll uphold a woman’s right to choice, that I will fund abortions so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right others can exercise… Rudy Giuliani 1989.
On Gun Control This is an industry that is profiting from the suffering of innocent people. What’s worse, its profits rest on a number of illegal and immoral practices. This lawsuit is meant to end the free pass that the gun industry has so long enjoyed... Rudy Giuliani 2000 after filing suit against gun makers and distributors.
On Gun Control We need a federal law that bans all assault weapons, and if in fact you do need a handgun you should be subjected to at least the same restrictions-and really stronger ones-that exist for driving an automobile... Rudy Giuliani 1997
New York City Sues Gun Industry
By Mayor Rudy Giuliani
On June 20th, I was pleased to announce that the City of New York filed a lawsuit against two dozen major gun manufacturers and distributors. This is an industry which profits from the suffering of innocent people. The lawsuit is intended to end the free pass that the gun industry has enjoyed for a very long time, which has resulted in too many avoidable deaths. The suit alleges a number of illegal practices on the part of the gun manufacturers, including:
* Deliberately manufacturing many more firearms than can be bought for legitimate purposes such as hunting and law enforcement, and knowingly targeting these excess guns to criminals, youths and other persons unqualified to buy firearms;
* Deliberately undermining New York City's gun control laws by flooding other markets which have less stringent gun laws with firearms that the manufacturers know are destined to be illegally resold in New York City;
* Ignoring the illegal practices of gun distributors, many of whom openly engage in the above practices;
* Refusing to manufacture safer guns, with features such as trigger locks and "personalization" measures that allow only authorized persons to fire the weapon.
This is as I've been saying. As a leader, as a manager, Rudy is head and shoulders above any of the other current candidates. He is unexcelled at knocking heads and resisting an unfriendly press. Even Reagan gave up on controlling spending after half a year or so, but somehow or other Rudy managed to do it, in one of the most liberal cities in the nation.
The problem is, in a nutshell, the social issues, bottom line abortion. He needs to deal convincingly with that, or a lot of voters will stay home in November 2008.
Please note I am not saying that, if it's hillary vs. Rudy in November 2008, voters SHOULD stay home. I'm just saying that's what will happen, unless he deals with it convincingly.
"Giuliani leads GOP supply-siders out of the gate"
AKA "Giuliani throws social conservatives under the bus"
Thanks for a well reasoned response!
He also leads the partial birth abortion fans, draft avoiders, illegal aliens and gays!
I don't think Deroy Murdock has any idea what "supply side" economics is.
Come on, Deroy. It's time for you to return to your YAF roots and go huntin' with Hunter.
Feel free to trash at will, but I have to run as I actually some Republican items to take care for my County.
This a notice that I will not reply in the future to crass comments against Rudy so don't bother pinging me and wasting space on here just to bait me because I am not taking the bait.
Give me a well reasoned thought out answer, and I will respond.
Have a nice day!
Rudy will also have to change his position on guns if he wants to be elected. What you need to do to be mayor of New York is very different from what you need to do to be President. In practical terms, a Republican cannot be elected as a pro-abort or as a gun confiscator.
The pro-aborts will always vote for the Democrat in any case, and gun-control is a losing issue. Al Gore lost largely because he made the mistake of speaking out strongly in favor of gun control, which cost him some key states. The Democrats have been very low key about gun control ever since, having realized their big mistake, and the Republicans certainly cannot afford to embrace it.
But he will have to make this clear, too.
Lovely picture!
Lovely picture!
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Such a sickening compromise when we look at the candidate field...there is no clear conservative leader, no one candidate that clearly belongs in the job. It's more like a pack of jackals all picking over a carcass...
What Guillani needs is a come to Jesus meeting with the cardinal of NY. He could confess and seek absolution.
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