The Supreme Court doesn't raise taxes. It merely required equity in education. Here in Texas the Supreme Court did the same thing - made a decision that required the education funding to be changed. Liberals wanted more money and a broad-based tax increase. The Texas Republican leadership added a tax, but then cut property taxes by one-third, rejiggering in a way that was a tax cut. Not net tax increase.
Huckabee showed zero fiscal conservative leadership in response to the decision. He could have held the line on spending or gone another way than a large tax increase. HE DID NOT. He begged for a tax hike, got it, and signed it. And now he squeals like a stuck pig for his lack of leadership and lack of conservative cohones?!? pathetic!
How did Huckabee control the road conditions? Could he have gotten them magically repaired without paying for it? Everyone here seems to be satisfied with the road improvements with the pay-as-you-go program.
Every other governor faces the same challenges you mention. And yet Huckabee was ranked 45th out of 50 among governors by Cato on how he met those challenges. He was one of the most fiscally irresponsible governors. The state tax burden climbed from 30th place to 13th place; spending grew faster than the economy (which it did not under Mitt's watch in Massachusetts nor in most other states). The points you make are not refutations of Huckabee's tax-and-spend record THEY ARE EXCUSES THAT BASICALLY SAYS WE SHOULD BE TAX AND SPENDERS. That mindset is a liberal tax-and-spend mindset. It is wrong.
"The Supreme Court doesn't raise taxes. It merely required equity in education."
The Chancery Court decision upheld by the Supreme Court stated: "The school funding system now in place in the State of Arkansas is inequitable and inadequate". You left out the inadequate part.
"Huckabee showed zero fiscal conservative leadership in response to the decision. He could have held the line on spending or gone another way than a large tax increase. HE DID NOT. He begged for a tax hike, got it, and signed it. And now he squeals like a stuck pig for his lack of leadership and lack of conservative cohones?!? pathetic!"
Huckabee agreed to consolidate some of the smaller school districts in the state to reduce administrative costs and hopefully improve the quality of education. That was an unpopular decision in some of those substandard districts, but it held the line on spending. But we can't keep cutting to the point where we have to drop math and science classes. If a tax increase was necessary to maintain a decent standard of education here, we'll do it.
After the decade-plus of litigation in the case, if the Supreme Court had found the funding to still be "inadequate" after the court-imposed deadline, Huckabee would have been found in contempt, and it was possible that the public school system could have been shut down statewide.
Compounding the troubles, the legislature here is controlled by Democrats. That is the ground-truth political reality here. If they'd had their way, the tax increases could have been much larger.
Huckabee had virtually no choice after the decison in the Lake View lawsuit was upheld. It was either increase the tax for school funding, or be found in contempt of the supreme court and risk a shutdown of the schools. He made the only rational choice.