Fights Between Friends
By Erick Posted in 2008 — Comments (22) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I expect we're going to start seeing more fights between friends like the present dustup between Joe Carter and the Club for Growth.
CFG has been bashing the mess out of Huckabee for his record in Arkansas. Joe is firing back, pointing out a donor to CFG is also a huge porker. I don't know though, CFG gets money from a private individual porker to go after a porker running for office? I don't have a real problem with that, especially when it's the far left Salon that started off throwing the stones.
I understand where Joe's coming from on this, but would suggest he might want to refute the message instead of trying to discredit the messenger. Those on the right are never going to win the "who's the hypocrite game." The left invented that game.
Where this debate needs to head, I think, is to calm the fears of the business and financial community on Huckabee. Let's all be honest -- on social policies, there are few if any candidates better than Mike Huckabee. My wife is most comfortable with Mike because she points out he's willing to defend tough social issues that the left likes to slam us with. And those are her issues.
But, we need more than the social conservatives to win this thing and Mike's message on executive salaries and carbon offsets scares the crap out of the business community.
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Maybe the entire GOP Majority in Ohio *isn't* standing up for hte kind of fiscal discipline the CfG thinks it's supposed to. What's wrong with that?
And personally, I've never heard of a budget crisis that couldn't be solved by cutting spending. Why is it we never heard about the need to cut spending when some new 'need' for spending arises? It's always a need for new taxes, new borrowing, or both...
This is what CfG's JOB is though. They are a group dedicated to pro-growth policies, and no matter how much you really, really, really want to raise taxes to fund program X, those tax hikes can hurt economic growth in that state.
In fact, when I think about it, state taxes probably affect state growth more than national taxes affect national growth, because one can always choose to hop across the state line to the nearest state that didn't raise taxes.
Just ask Jennifer Granholm about her Michigan recession.
I understand it is their job. But when they take sides it very often gets ugly and I am not sure it always helps the party. I understand the tension involved between getting the most conservative candidates elected and retaining the majority so you can move the agenda. The choices aren't always easy.
When the choice is between a liberal Republican with a clear record of tax hikes and a proven fiscal conservative it is easy to side with CFG. But when it is a contest between two conservative candidates and one of them voted for a budget that included a tax hike, I don't believe that one vote disqualifies that person from being conservative. CFG does and they run ads attacking that person as a liberal tax and spender.
All I am saying is that it isn't that simple
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Kevin Holtsberry
Managing Editor
www.StopHerNow.com
...a think-tank, a single-issue organization, etc. (like CfG, RTL, Code Pink, VFF, and others) -- they get to sit back and tell everybody what should be done, and nitpick about every single issue as though it were black and white, with no regard for context or practical reality, because (a) that's their only role in the public debate, and (b)they never, ever have to actually go about getting something actually enacted or passed, which means that they do not have to even think about (let alone deal with) the pragmatism, compromise, or any other reality of the political/policymaking arena (nor do they have to deal with the actual consequences of what it is that they advocate for).
We want single-issue focus, because if they sit there discussing necessary compromises, we'll never see the black or white. It may have to be that we deal in grays in politics, but we get there by putting as much black as we can against the white -- and to do that, it helps to know where the black begins and the white ends.
Put differently, if we wanted them to spell out compromises, we'd give money to politicians, not think-tanks.
I think you're unfair, though, in saying that they don't have to "deal with the actual consequences of what it is that they advocate for": They're shooting for specific means to achieve specific ends. They care very much about the actual consequences of their proposed policies; that's why they propose those policies. More directly, they'll lose influence and funding if their policies yield poor results. And they're invested in the political process at least as much as you and I, and care at least as much as you and I do.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
It finally makes a little more sense why CFG is attacking Huck so passionately. It just didn't make any sense for them to attack him unless there was something personal involved. The fact that they ads were bought by an Arkansas businessman makes sense now. It really must be personal rather than actually policy based. Finally making sense now.
Give me a break. The idea that the Club for Growth, as a whole, is out to get Mike Huckabee personally is ludicrous.
***I understand where Joe's coming from on this, but would suggest he might want to refute the message instead of trying to discredit the messenger.***
I agree. That's why I posted a rebuttal to the CFG last week: http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/004053.html
***Where this debate needs to head, I think, is to calm the fears of the business and financial community on Huckabee.***
I can understand that reticence. I had the same concerns myself because I had believed the CFG's hit piece. When I looked into what he really stands for, though, I found that most of concerns were unwarranted.
On taxes, for instance, he told FRCA that he opposes the estate tax and wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxS54gAKpYE
He also signed Grover's "no new taxes" pledge, something that Rudy won't do. In fact, he wants to eliminate all personal, federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes. It's pretty odd how he can be painted as a big-government liberal when he want to eliminate the IRS.
Huckabee isn't perfect but he's a solid fiscal conservative. The problem is that groups like CFG don't want a fiscal conservative, they want an anarcho-capitalist. They have moved away from the mainstream of conservative thought into the "no taxes ever for anything" fringe.
He also signed Grover's "no new taxes" pledge, something that Rudy won't do.
Fred and John McCain won't sign it either:
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/anteater/2007/oct/30/huckabees_fiscal_reco...
That is, he doesn't at all. It's pure, unvarnished pander with no chance of having to follow through.
as any of the Democrats running.
Look, the is solid on "social" issues. Trying to find ways to dress him up and pass him off as a fiscal conservative or someone who believes in either federalism or smaller government is simply insulting and putting lipstick and a silk dress on a pig.
The guy is running around the country insisting that his fuel tax increase was on the ballot and that's a flat out lie. I have no problem if you want to support the guy because of his social positions and hope for the best with the rest. But quit with the lipstick already, you're making fools of yourselves.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
In fact, he wants to eliminate all personal, federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes.
On the gas tax, as I told you earlier, the tax and the bond were implicitly related. The tax was enacted first, and then voters overwhelmingly approved the related bond; both were needed to fix the roads. The voters implicitly gave Huckabee's raising of the tax a vote of confidence when they voted overwhelmingly for the related bond.
Huckabee should phrase it in a better way to avoid sounding misleading, but the general idea is true: the public highly approved of Huckabee's actions to fix the roads.
Huckabee should phrase it in a better way to avoid sounding misleading, but the general idea is true
Or just maybe Huckabee should stop taking lessons on telling the truth from that other pillar of truthfulness who was once governor of AR.
Does the "implicit" after-the-fact popular support for the gas tax hike depend on what the meaning of the word is is? This isn't the only place he and his minions have had to resort to lies to cover up his record.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
He said, as have his supporters, over and over again that the fuel tax was "on the ballot" and that it was voted on and approved by the good folk of AR.
Now it turns out, at least according to you, that the tax that Huckabee singlehandedly implemented without a vote of the people and the bond issue were "closely entwined". Gee, I'll bet he didn't have sex with "that" woman.
Now you are falling back to the redoubt of scoundrels and telling us that Huck should have found a "better way" to tell us he raised taxes instead of REPEATEDLY lying about it on national TV. Misspoke maybe?
Oh, and Club for Growth is right about the boy. He raised fuel taxes it was not a ballot issue.
I've got to admit that the one aspect of the Huckster running against Hillary would be to see who can get caught the most often telling the biggest lies.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
***He raised fuel taxes it was not a ballot issue.***
Actually, both Huckabee and CFG get it half right on this one. The diesel fuel tax was included on the ballot issue; the gas tax was not. Both camps should be more clear on that point.
But this dispute shows why most Americans are giving up on conservatives. Huckabee raised the gas tax 1 cent a year for three years to build better roads. When people find that out and hear that this disqualifies him from being a "fiscal conservative" they rightly realize that we conservatives are out of touch with reality.
The diesel fuel tax was included on the ballot issue
You got a link to the text of the actual question on the ballot?
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ftproot/acts/1999/htm/act1027.htm
Here's the relevant portion:
"The General Assembly has further determined that the bonds should be payable from certain designated revenues, including federal highway assistance funding and the proceeds of an increase in the excise tax on diesel fuel and that the repayment of such bonds should also be guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the state."
...in 11 yrs as governor, he supported one fuel tax supported by about 70-some percent of the Ark. people that kept voting him in...
the sky is falling, the sky is falling...
Here's REAL fiscal liberalism:
from
www.massresistance.org/docs/marriage/romney/record/
Romney supports minimum wage laws
* In as a candidate for Governor 2002, Romney proposed indexing the Massachusetts minimum wage with inflation, telling the Boston Globe "I do not believe that indexing the minimum wage will cost us jobs. I believe it will help us retain jobs." - - Boston Globe, 7/25/2002
* "The minimum wage is important to our economy and Mitt Romney supports minimum wage increase, at least in line with inflation."
- Romney 2002 campaign website
Romney Balances Budget with $500 Million in New Fees
* "His first budget, presented under a cloud of a $2 billion deficit, balanced the budget with some spending cuts, but a $500 million increase in various fees was the largest component of the budget fix." Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004. Romney was rated a "C" overall by Cato.
See presentation on Cato website
Romney imposes "socialized" health care on Massachusetts
* In 2006, Romney introduced a universal health care bill (which passed the Legislature in a slightly amended version) which has been criticized by conservatives as being socialistic.
Republican Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is trying to accomplish in his final year in office what Democrats can only dream of these days: boosting government spending on and regulation of health care and requiring individuals to purchase government-designed policies. Romney's plan, which is backed by such liberals as Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, Mass.), is being pitched as a compact between citizens and the state.
- National Review Online, 1/26/2006
SEE ALSO
www.townhall.com/columnists/GreggJackson/2007/11/09/romney_secrets_the_m...
Is the way they take state level issues and make them black and white when they are often gray. I know, I know this sounds like squishy centrism, but having been involved in policy making at the state level it is simple a fact.
Not all taxes are the same and not all situations are equal. just because you voted for a budget deal that included tax increases doesn't mean you are a tax hiking liberal. Just because you supported a gas tax increase doesn't mean you are a RINO, etc.
I am not saying I support Huck on economic issues, but I am increasingly frustrated with the way CFG attacks people. By their standards almost the entire GOP majority in Ohio are RINOs. Which is fine except take them away and you have no majority (see Blackwell versus Strickland).
There should be some common ground we can come to in order to keep the majority coalition.
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Kevin Holtsberry
Managing Editor
www.StopHerNow.com