Mike Huckabee: I'm Not Impressed
Mike Huckabee was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday yesterday. The transcript is here and video is here.
I was unimpressed with Huckabee's answers regarding tax increases while he was governor of Arkansas.
When asked about a tax on nursing homes, Huckabee said it wasn't a tax, it was a "quality assurance fee."
This is reminiscent of California's Governor Schwarzenegger wanting to pay for his universal health care proposal with new "fees" on doctors and hospitals.
In each case, I didn't care for the semantic evasion.
When it came to the video of then Governor Huckabee asking the state legislature to send him proposals for tax increases, Huckabee's defense was, in essence, that he had to put everything on the table, including taxes, in order to keep the all-Democrat state legislature from shutting down the government.
So what would a President Huckabee do with an all-Democratic Congress, give them whatever they want?
Some leadership.
In the past I've also been unimpressed with Huckabee's attitudes toward illegal immigration; he seems to equate Christian charity with needing to condone law-breaking. I saw him on HANNITY & COLMES a few days ago justifying giving illegal aliens educational financial breaks over American citizens from other states because the illegal alien children had "been educated in Arkansas" (thanks to their law-breaking parents). He was extremely dismissive of those who disagree with his point of view.
Many social conservatives see Huckabee as a charming guy who is a potential "white knight." I just don't see it...I see an edgy, tax-raising nanny-stater.
National Review (subject link) seems of the same mindset: "Several of the Republican presidential candidates share Huckabee’s views on abortion and same-sex marriage. On domestic-policy issues, however, he stands alone. Thankfully."
Tuesday Update: Jonah Goldberg of NRO writes that Mike Huckabee "represents compassionate conservatism on steroids," and describes Huckabee as a "statist" who is a "right-wing progressive."
posted by Laura @ 2:13 PM
2 Comments:
I was actually overwhelmingly thrilled with Huckabee's performance... It answered a lot of questions for me.
A couple thing I need to clarify, the nursing home quality assurance fee averted much larger tax hikes and was successful, the only reason it is an issue is because the Club for Growth (a political hack organization that takes fund anonymously as I am sure you know) has been spreading half truths regarding it.
Also, Huckabee in no way subsidizes or endorses illegal immigration. He did NOT give illegal immigrants special anything. Children who were successful students, seeking to be citizens of the United States, and not themselves law breakers were being excluded from merit based scholarships. Mike Huckabee was against this pointing out that children of illegal immigrants did not break any law and had should be given all the chance to excel and be tax paying citizens instead of undocumented workers mowing Mitt Romney estate lawn.
also, keep in mind why it is Huckabee being attacked so. Much like Ronald Reagan threatend the Republican establishment with "voodoo economic" Huckabee is a threat because he actually is able to apply conservative values to blue collar folks. However he threatens the wall street establishment and special interest hack groups are going after him.
Comparing the Gubernatorial tax record of Ronald Reagan and Mike Huckabee you an see that Huckabee has a significantly more conservative fiscal record. Reason Magazine back in the 70s said that Reagan was a fake fiscal conservative who was little more than a tax and spender. The parallels between these two great men are endless right down to the criticisms of the so called conservatives rallied against them.
None of the candidates on either the Republican or Democratic side of the isle have as much executive experiance as Mike Huckabee.
Zig Ziglar just gave a glowing endorsement of Huckabee that I would recommend you look up on youtube...
Good luck!
Hi Nathaniel,
On the issue of illegal immigration, one of my big problems with Governor Huckabee is that he was happy to put illegal alien students ahead of our own nation's citizens. He did thus give illegal alien students special breaks and help subsidize illegal immigration.
Whether or not the students or their parents broke the law, it simply does not compute, to my way of thinking, that we give preferences to non-citizens over citizens (would any other nation do that?!)...Huckabee's excuse that the illegal children were "educated in Arkansas" and thus deserved the scholarships over American citizens is disturbing to me.
We have the same problem here in California, where illegal alien students get the relatively affordable in-state tuition costs for state universities, while someone from any other state has to pay an exorbitant tuition price tag (which I suspect helps subsidize the tuition for the illegal aliens).
One can have compassion for children whose parents broke the law by coming here, without making illegal immigration more enticing by continuing to hand out taxpayer-paid "freebies" to illegal aliens, particularly when those students are given preferential treatment over American citizens.
I'm not much of a Romney fan, but my understanding is that the "undocumented workers" mowing his lawn were hired by the lawn company without Governor Romney's knowledge. If I'm wrong and Governor Romney knowingly hired illegal aliens, I'd love to have the facts on that.
As for the rest, we'll have to agree to disagree. Thanks for sharing the perspective of a Huckabee supporter.
Best wishes,
Laura
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