Giuliani leads GOP supply-siders out of the gate

Metro Daily News ^ | Feb 18, 2007 | Deroy Murdock

[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."

[nosofar]

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.

I'll vote for whoever wins the nomination as a placeholder to prevent the worst excesses of a Democratically controlled government until (hopefully) someone more acceptable shows up.

[AdvisorB]

I like to say that I will support the GOP standard bearer in the general election, whomever happens to win the nomination. However, when it comes to McCain, it's going to be very difficult to motivate myself to go to the polls. I will vote that day for the straight GOP ticket, come home, take a shower, immerse myself for an hour in a hot tub, all the while swigging a good part of a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
As difficult as that experience would be, in pales in comparison to contemplating a clinton "restoration," and what it would mean to our brave heroes wearing the uniform. If we sit home, or vote 3rd party we have in effect, sold out our fighting men and women, who are putting everything on the line, just as you did for us in Vietnam, sir.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

"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."

IMHO we should make up a job description for the office of POTUS:

1. Head of State - represent the country and its values.
2. Head of Government:
   1. form a more perfect Union Done, to a fault, by the Seventeenth Amendment.
   2. establish Justice
      1. nominate judges and justices who will respect and uphold the Constitution and the law.
      2. Nominate and supervise the Attorney General
   3. insure domestic Tranquility - FBI, Dept of Homeland Security.
   4. provide for the common defense - nominate and supervise the SecDef.
   5. promote the general Welfare - nominate and supervise:
      1. Secretary of the Treasury
      2. Secretary of the Interior
      3. Secretary of Commerce
      4. Chairman of the Federal Reserve
      5. Chairman of the SEC
      6. Secretary of Transportation
      7. Secretary of Education
      8. Secetary of Labor
      9. Secretary of HHS
      10. Surgeon General
   6. secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
      Nominate
      1. FCC members
      2. FEC members

It strikes me that Guliani would be good at some important stuff - the economy and security - and bad primarily on stuff that is outside the actual mandate of the government. Securing liberty is primarily not doing things that aren't the government's business.

And that although McCain is prolife, he not only is extremely subversive of the First Amendment, he is not as good a Guliani on the economy. The conclusion is that there are Federal Departments - Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, possibly HHS and Education - that Guliani would be qualified to head, but between those two we want "none of the above" for POTUS.

The other two top tier "candidates," Romney and Gingrich, are also quite different cases. Romney would be good at getting things done, and at representing the ideals of the country, but what would he do? Gingrich has a messy personal life which compromises his utility as head of state, and has no executive experience, but he is the single best choice in terms of being committed to the right government policies.

[EagleUSA]

I'll vote for whoever wins the nomination as a placeholder to prevent the worst excesses of a Democratically controlled government....
-----
Let us pray that all right-thinking Americans will do the same thing. There can be no power-mad Marxist in the White House and still keep our Constitutional republic alive...

[noname07718]

Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Smorch. From Viet Nam I learned that if you love someone enough, you must be prepared to survive their loss. I lost friends during a Christmas Truce (Remember them?). I had promised that I would give no one that power over my happiness unless I married or spawned them. I married a wonderful woman and have four great children.

Unfortunately, I was lax in my resolve to allow anyone else to get close to me again and I had an extremely fine friend who died a hero in the North Tower. He could have gotten out of the tower safely, but he stayed behind to take car of his staff. He was leading his team to safety (only one made it safely). They only found a little bit more than ½ of his body.

This is why the WOT is so important to me. I want my children and their children to grow up safely in the greatest country in the history of mankind. There is only one issue for me in this race and it is winning the WOT. Everything else is secondary. Visit Pat at:

Pat Hoey WTC hero

He was a man of heroic proportions.

[AdvisorB]

When I graduated from high school in 1969, my draft number was 19, but my feet are flatter than pancakes, so there was no way the military was ever going to draft me. I still feel guilty to this day, that friends of mine went to Vietnam, and didn't return.... I would like to acknowledge Staff Sergeant Clifton Wheelhouse, one of my best friends growing up. We played in little league together. He spent nights with my brothers and I, and we stayed nights over at his house. He didn't come back...He gave it all, and I gave nothing, and I'm still dealing with that lo these many years.

Thank you for your service, sir. Thank you.

[Roland Hand]

I haven't made up my mind yet but also don't forget the 10 Million Check he returned to the Sheik after 9-11 because it had 'strings attached'. How refreshing a politician turning down money

I am not certain but he might have been involved with the Leon Klinghoffer terrorist attack as a prosecutor. I do have senior moments so this might be incorrect but is floating in my bad recollections area. In any case my verdict is still out, but Rudy does seem to be the heir apparent to the WOT leadership mantle.

[Peach]

This means that you should return home to find one ping. Mine. Because the majority of ragers are unable to have a debate about what a Rudy candidacy means to the party.

BTW, I just returned home from the city's monthly GOP meeting. Sen. DeMint (staunch conservative) is endorsing Mitt but says that Rudy would be an excellent president as well.

[Roland Hand]

Looks like we need a good executive. Nice piece of work.

[texastoo]

Was that a mistake???????Pink ,white and blue???????????Gag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for the info! Note you are the only one I am replying to! :)

[Little Ray]

He can't "deal convincingly" with his social issues. Whats he gonna do - put on a dress and say "I changed my mind."
Even he really did come over to the light, it will look more like political opportunism than an honest conversion. And his promises are worth a d@mn - after all, he's a politician.

I won't stay home, but I can bloody well skip that line on the ballot. If the GOP can't do better than Hillary! light, then lets have Hillary! - why settle for the Lesser Evil?

[Peach]

I don't even read the threads anymore. The posts are typically ignorant, knee jerk reactions by people who don't know what they're talking about.

Oh, and in what was an hour of speech making and answering questions, neither gun control nor abortion even came up by the audience or Sen. De Mint. Imagine that :-)

[AdvisorB]

The pink, white, and blue, for hitlary?

[AdvisorB]

Okay, so you're support hitlary by default. Here's a bumper sticker for your car....

[AdvisorB]

support should have been supporting.

[PhiKapMom]

You mean it was not the primary focus -- that does it -- you all are just not "true" conservatives or it would be brought up every meeting because that is the only issue that matters. :)

[Cicero]

Well, we'll wait and see what happens. But Giuliani has generally been an honest politician, and has done what he said he would do. I did NOT like some of his positions, especially on abortion, but I don't think he's the type to bait and switch.

He did stand up to the press on some very tough issues, like defending policemen who shot black criminals against the race baiters. And he did so even when Hillary was making hay with that issue and the media were going berserk. I think he can be relied on to keep his word. But I'm still not sure if he'll be willing to really give it. We'll see.

[noname07718]

First of all, it is not true that you have given nothing. Your honoring the values of this country and the sacrifice that Sgt. Wheelhouse willingly made are a manifestation of the very values that made and continue to make this country the greatest. I did no more, no less than was asked of me. For all of my years I was told you get what you pay for in life. The cost to me was small. One thing I do know is that in the 2+ years I was in Combat, everyone that served under me got out of country alive. Sure I had wounded, but I NEVER lost a man!

Look back throughout our history. This country has been truly blessed. We get a terrible President (Carter) and we survive him and succeed him with one of the greatest president’s of all time (Reagan). We get a draft dodging President Clinton) and then we get a good President (Bush). It would seem that Providence (God) sends us just what we need every time. God must truly love this country more than words can express.

Which brings me to today’s Armed Forces. How do we consistently come up with such wonderful men and women who are willing to place themselves in harm’s way for your safety and mine? These folks are not the undereducated people that the butt-wipe Kerry thinks they are. These are today’s heroes and they stand so tall in my eyes. I am currently on Chemotherapy and one of the side effects of this regime is that when I tear up, thee is significant pain in my eyes. Just thinking of these brave Americans causes the tears to flow copiously.

I am about to be as Politically Incorrect as possible. All of those who are against our war on terror are TRAITORS! There I’ve said it. I will debate ad infinitum anyone saying that Iraq is a mistake. I will use their own petards to illustrate their lying. Their hero (BJ Clinton) Went to war with no UN Resolution (Kosovo) There were at least 4 UN Resolutions against Iraq. We had many allies. (We didn’t have France; much to our credit). In 1998, the Congress passed a resolution calling for regime change in Iraq. BJ Clinton didn’t have the guts to act on that other than signing a worthless piece of paper (Much like the non-binding resolution).

The list could go on and on. I want someone for a president worthy of leading the fine men and women in uniform. I don’t want a manager, I want a LEADER.

Just for the Record, I think the amount that Arab wanted to give was $20M. I hadn’t heard about the Klingoffer connection. All of the above makes me convinced that there can be only one winner in 2008 and he needs to win big – Rudy.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Allowing illegal immigrants access to public housing, food stamps, social services and to BANKRUPT public hospitals is hardly supply side economics...

P.S. The Second Amendment is not a social issue.

My Constitutional rights do not end at the New York city limits or at any state line...