Mike Huckabee On Fox News Sunday

These interviewers bring up the same issues every time. Chris Wallace has already interviewed Huckabee twice. But, here comes the same o’ stuff: “The Club for Growth… “ Surely, you are all on the Internet enough to know of the Club for Growth’s campaign against Mike Huckabee, that’s been going on since he announced.

Hey, I’m a fiscal conservative and so is Mike Huckabee. We don’t advocate spending, even in a state, which is more than necessary and serves only to tamp economic vitality. The only problem here relative to economic vitality is the fact that economic vitality is not The Club for Growth’s concern. That is clear from the nature of their campaign and the identity and affiliation of their largest contributors.

For example, The Club for Growth criticizes Mike Huckabee because while he was governor of Arkansas, fuel taxes were raised to rebuild a dilapidated highway system. And, the state Supreme Court ordered that something be done about education funding. Huckabee was not satisfied merely to increase education funding, but imposed standards whereby improvements would be measured, and measured improvements happened. Anyone who is concerned about economic vitality knows that you won’t optimize it with a lousy highway system or a lousy education system, Supreme Court rulings or not.

No, The Club for Growth’s campaign is a mercenary one, first instigated by the fact that one of its largest contributors is an old adversary of Huckabee’s. And more recently we have seen that another of its largest contributors is a Mitt Romneyite. Besides the obvious Romney interest in Iowa, multi multi millionaire investment capitalist Romney is the favorite of the high-roller class. There’s nothing wrong with that. But most of these folks have tax preparers and lobbyists who work full-time to shield assets from the income tax, which is why the most wealthy carry a smaller percentage of tax burden, relative to us po’ folks who don’t earn 7 figures. Therefore, these people don’t like The Fair Tax that Huckabee promotes. With the Fair Tax, we would file for and pay no income taxes, no capital gains, no corporate taxes, no inheritance taxes…nothing. Rather, taxes would only be assessed at the point of purchase of any new product. Imagine the tax on John Edwards’ 25,000 square foot home, and on every other daily luxury that are routinely “written off.” Eeek!

There’s a wealth of ignorance afloat on this matter, which I suppose is no great surprise among a people that has only considered what advantages it can angle on April 15, which Huckabee says he’d like to see as just another pretty spring day. The last time I heard Huckabee challenged on The Fair Tax, it was with the supposition that only the poor and the wealthy would benefit, not the vast middle class. Horsepucky! Have you ever noticed how no matter how many tens of thousands of dollars you earn, you manage to spend more at every level? It doesn’t change, no matter how many millions you make. And more spending would be taxed more.

Under The Fair Tax, if you want to shelter your money from taxes, YOU SAVE AND INVEST IT! : An essential art that many Americans have long forgotten. We may only buy what we need, but the more we make, the more we NEED! Speaking of helping the middle class, what do you think it will do for middle-class opportunity to haul back into the country, the trillions of dollars worth of industry and commerce that has fled offshore to avoid America’s onerous taxation of business?

From where I sit today, I just hope that most people will do their own investigating on the Internet, rather than swallowing these 3^rd-party words whole. It’s all there, and Huckabee has nothing to hide. I was disappointed today to even hear from George F. Will on ABC’s "This Week" say dismissive things about Huckabee. When the question came up about whether the criticism would hurt Huckabee with conservatives, Will only said that conservatives wouldn’t like it when they hear that he favored giving scholarships to the children of illegal aliens or that he wants to have a 23% (there was emphasis on the number) national sales tax.

Now, George Will is an extraordinarily bright and educated man and writer. I started watching Will’s writing as a teenager. He’s not a shallow reactionary sentimental conservative. He knows and understands the rest of the story in these cases. Shouldn’t even the mention of a 23% sales tax (Yes, it’s high. That’s how much tax America already pays in income, imbedded business and other taxes) also mention that entails the complete elimination of other federal taxes, never mind specifying the breadth of social benefit that poses? And, Huckabee opposed the withholding of a specific scholarship from applicants who were the children of illegal aliens who had qualified in Arkansas school systems. Huckabee says that children shouldn’t be punished for the earlier crimes of parents, and asked if we want a permanent low-wage potential tax taker or an educated and productive tax payer? Yes, if your most urgent priority is to punish illegal aliens even via their children, or you prefer your big-dollar tax evasions, perhaps Huckabee isn’t your guy. But, avail yourself of the facts, not just the questions.

And George Will knows better, so one is left to speculate about what animated his comments. Based on many years of familiarity with Will’s writings, my first speculation might be that Will, the son of educators who earned graduate degrees at Oxford and Princeton and taught in Universities before passing nearly 35 years as a Washington DC-based writer and commentator, does not exactly identify with the Southern evangelical. George Will has written columns about the vulgarity of the mass-abortion culture. But, I’ve also seen and read his dismissal of people who don’t hew to a contemporary pop naturalist dogma. Will’s too smart to be concerned about Huckabee’s conservative credentials, especially relative to the other candidates in the field. The idea is laughable. And Will isn’t a “round ‘em up and deport ‘em all (and their families, too)” or a fan of a manipulable income tax system. Maybe, it’s just a simple provincial, “he’s not my kind of people.”

As Huckabee has said, it makes it a lot easier on him that he just says what he believes and doesn’t have to remember what he said before or what an advisor told him to say. But, I’m certain Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson will make him have to say it over, and over, and over…