Huckabee: Of Course He's a Fascist

The gang at Fox & Friends was happily engaged in their familiar morning routine when one of them made the mistake of asking Rep. Ron Paul about a campaign ad produced by a rival presidential aspirant, Mike Huckabee.

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Huckabee: If You Don’t Give, I’ll Tax it Out of You

For how long will the Huckabee illusion continue? Right off the top: I think Mike Huckabee would be an absolute disaster as a nominee…and as president in the highly unlikely event he were elected. There are a number of reasons, but I will cover only one here…and it's not his obnoxious Christianeering*, but it is closely linked. Truth is, Huckabee has a history, including in statements on his campaign website right now, that shows he's a reflexive tax-hiker at heart and doesn't seem to have met a tax increase he can't rationalize.

Most of you have probably read this 1998 article as it has been the Drudge headline most of the day today.

"I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have — giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor — we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing … what we should have been doing all along."

Talk about swapping the chicken and the egg here! Sorry to use cliches in consecutive sentences, but Huckster was barking up the wrong tree as well.

First, the relationship between government intrusion in the social sector and the rate of charitable giving is this: it is BECAUSE government usurped the traditional social service role that more people came to depend on the state, with a concomitant reduction in community-based solutions to social ills. When government recedes in these areas, when pockets are picked less, charity increases.

Contrary to the tired "Decade of Greed" meme, the Reagan tax cuts led to a doubling in charitable giving (Note: look at the raw numbershere, Philanthropy.com, a lefty-run outfit, attempts to minimize the impact of Reagan tax policy).

Second, he is scolding the WRONG bunch. I'm used to such accusations from Jim Wallis (the Bible-waving socialist who regularly accuses conservative Christians of acting "unbiblically" and of "betraying Jesus") and Tony Campolo ("you can be Christian and care about the poor"), but not from someone trying to appeal to people who actually take Scripture to be more than a tool to advance a socialist agenda.

The fact is conservative Christians DO care about the poor and they actually do something about it…like give to charity. Conservative people of faith give more of their own money and time to charity than any other group, including Christian Leftists. Arthur Brooks compiled the bullet-proof truth in his book "Who Really Cares."

Here's the point. Huckabee, in this statement and in others, sees the government as Big Savior who fills the "need" when the flock "falls short." His default isn't, "Hey maybe the fact that government stuck its nose in the peoples' business in the first place led to a fluctuation in wasteful, redundant and decidedly failed public programs and a reduction in community solutions." No, Huckabee blames the very people who have and still do give more to the community than anyone else for failing and for the "necessity" of Big Savior's cold, bureaucratic and expensive infiltration.

The reason that this 1998 article is relevant today is that in the decade since, Huckabee continued to skip out on mandatory Sowell 101 classes and instead polished his resume as a tax hound. His own "Truth Squad" answers to Club For Growth and CATO shine the light on his "taxes are frequently the answer" form of, er, leadership.

First, I have to point out, he refers to CFG as "Club for Greed" and “anti-tax radicals.” (Kind of like when he referred to border enforcement and employer sanctions supporters as bigots…pattern?) He is maddeningly insistent that the only way to “cover budget shortfalls” is to raise taxes, using the state balanced budget amendment as thin cover for this claim. Time and time again, it has been shown that REDUCING taxes increases prosperity, reduces the inclination to hide income and therefore contributes to increased receipts to the treasury. So his, “what else was I supposed to do” argument rings hollow and shallow. Not only is the use of the state’s balanced budget amendment a pretty cheap juke, his statement that “90% of the state's budget is spent on education, Medicare, prisons, and human services” sets off MAJOR alarm bells, as if there was no opportunity to cut wasteful spending in those areas or reform the “human services” (Code Word Alert: welfare) to bring the budget in line.

He ends up going Clinton Postal in his "clarifying questions" for CFG section. I'll sum it up: You hate kids, you hate sick and old people, you think bridges should fall, etc. if you question my record during a presidential campaign and if you answer any way other than the choices we’ve given you. Again, he implies here that the only way to fix a welfare-packed budget shortfall is to raise taxes, so whatever other explanation he has for other fiscal policies needs to be considered through that prism.

I wish I had the time and was delusional enough to think that anyone has actually read to to this point…but neither is the case, so I'll wrap it up. Bottom line for Huckabee is that he can find a million good reasons to raise taxes, he blames the people least responsible for the "necessity" of government intrusion (the very same people he's playing Jedi Mind Trick on), he'll name-call whenever someone has a different opinion and, dad-gummit, he's doing it all as the [one and only] "Christian Leader" in the race. See, his policies regarding taxes and "helping" the poor are the proper Christian policies and if you are not feeling sufficiently tithey he'll make sure he gets it through the tax man. Render unto Caesar what is God's…that's how it goes right?

*I don't doubt Huckabee's sincerity as a believer and obviously his "vote for me because I'm a Christian" strategy is working pretty well right now (at the same time feeding the myth that Evangelicals are dolts who will simply follow a co-religionist if he can deliver a revival-tent stemwinder…he can). However, unlike faith-centered candidates like Reagan and Bush 43, it seems to be all he's got and he'll go to that one well until he's sucking magma from the ground below it.

PS — his support for the Fair Tax is pretty meaningless in that he KNOWS it doesn't have a chance. Cynical yes, but I have a feeling his support for the Fair Tax is a smoke-screen to obscure his lack of a realistic tax refrom plan. We've seen what Gov. Huck will do when there is a "budget shortfall." It's spelled T-A-X and he continues to toot that trumpet. So how can we trust him to act differently as president?

Original post by Glib Fortuna, 12/10/2007

http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2007/12/10/huckabee-if-you-dont-give-ill-tax-it-out-of-you/

Bombed If You Do, Bombed If You Don't

It is unthinkable that despite lack of any evidence of a threat, some are still charging headstrong into yet another war in the Middle East when what we ought to be doing is coming home from Iraq, coming home from Korea, coming home from Germany and defending our own soil. We do not need to be interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and waging war when honest trade, friendship, and diplomacy are the true paths to peace and prosperity.

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Imperialism Isn't Fun When The Enemy Can Shoot Back

“We do not want the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The islands are very rich, but unfortunately they are infested with Filipinos. There are many millions, there and, it is to be feared their extinction will be slow."

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Please Ignore Ron Paul.

An Open letter to ‘Old Media’ to please continue to ignore Republican Candidate Ron Paul.

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