Sorry, overall, Giuliani is too far left [not a fiscal conservative either]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821920/posts
NewsDay
4/23/2007
Points brought out in the article:
- Giuliani was big on doling out corporate welfare.
- He loved offering huge taxpayer subsidies to sports teams for new stadiums.
- Total expenditures rose by 30 percent during Giulianis term in office, or almost double the inflation rate.
- He deserves credit for cutting some taxes, including the citys hotel and commercial rent taxes.
- But he also worked hard for high taxes.
- In 1994, Giuliani endorsed Gov. Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, for re-election against then-challenger George Pataki, the Republican. Why? In part, it was because Giuliani opposed Patakis proposed tax cuts.
- In 1999 Giuliani fought against the State Legislatures repeal of a commuter income tax.
- Giulianis rather smallish tax cuts were swamped by his tax increases.
- New York Citys personal, corporate and unincorporated business income taxes, on top of state income levies, have long hampered entrepreneurship and economic growth, chasing away individuals and businesses.
- Giulianis budgets called for continuing a temporary personal income tax surcharges when they were to expire.
- In 1998, Giuliani reneged on his promise to eliminate the commercial rent tax and opposed the Democrat-led city councils effort to allow one of the income tax surcharges to expire as scheduled. He wanted to use the commercial rent tax revenue to build new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees, and was holding the income tax surcharge hostage to get the city councils support. That surcharge expired, despite Giulianis opposition.
- So much for Rudy the tax cutter.
Conclusion:
As for Giuliani supposedly being the only Republican able to beat Clinton, the contrary case can easily be made. With a liberal Giuliani leading the GOP ticket, conservative turnout could be quite low, making it easier for Clinton to win the White House.
So, given this political reality and Giulianis lefty record on many social and economic issues, one again wonders why any conservative would support him for president.
If not for Free Republic, I would have blindly supported Rudy Giuliani. Now I forward a lot of the stuff that gets posted here to family and friends - a lot of them are unaware of Giuliani’s abortion position. I think once some advertisments hit the tv airwaves, he will face some serious backlash.