Huckabee Lowers Tax Burden. Romney Increases Tax Burden
Grover Norquist Your Business Blogger was in the room when Mike Huckabee delivered The Taxpayer Protection Pledge to Grover Norquist.
Huckabee reviewed his tax record. That was the first time many heard Huckabee’s compelling review on public funding and taxes during his terms as governor.
It was there and then that Huckabee convinced me that he was a man who was a true conservative with the the public purse; the public treasury.
The Republican Presidential debates Sunday night centered on taxes. A topic of interest for all Americans but especially for New Hampshire, the state of the first Primary.
Romney went on the offensive early in the debate on taxes.
This is a debate Romney should avoid. Massachusetts’s state and local tax burden increased under Romney’s control — as compared to Arkansas under Huckabee’s tenure.
Mike Huckabee in New Hampshire The non-partisan Tax Foundation publishes a state by state comparison each year. 1 is highest tax burden going down to 50; lowest tax burden.
When Mike Huckabee took office his state was number 46 of the 50 states measuring the total state and local tax burden. The tax burden was 8.8%.
When Huckabee left office eight years later after two terms as Governor his state was still 46 of the 50 states and the burden remained the same at 8.8%. See the Tax Foundation; Arkansas page 4.
When Mitt Romney took office in Massachusetts the total comparable tax burden was 9.8% with the state ranked at number 35.
When Romney left office the Commonwealth’s tax burden was 10.5%. The state also slipped a full 7 steps in rank down (up) to 28. See the Tax Foundation; Massachusetts, page 21.
Huckabee kept his tax burden the same with the same state ranking.
Huckabee’s Arkansas starts ranked at 46 and leaves at 46 with no change.
Romney’s Massachusetts starts ranked at 35 and leaves at 28.
Romney left the Commonwealth with a heavier tax burden and the ranking worse.
Thank you (foot)notes:
Full Disclosure Update: Charmaine has served as a paid adviser to the Huckabee campaign.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and holds a weekly meeting in Your Nation’s Capital where he chairs an off-the-record meeting to review tax strategies and other conservative issues. Grover’s meetings include some of the smartest people on the planet. Your Business Blogger is not one of them.
Church going voters sing from a different sheet of music than the main stream media. Church goers don’t even need the sheet music.
The Taxpayer Protection Pledge,
I ,____________, pledge to the taxpayers of the _____ district of the State of _________ and to the American People that I will:
ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and
TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.
Check out numbers at MA for Huckabee.
And what happens if he later finds that more tax money is actually needed? Running a country is not cheap. Espicially for those who want to increase military spending, as Huckabee does. The federal government is already getting deeper into debt with every passing moment. Where does he intend to get the increased funding from? It has to mean either raising taxes, or cutting services.
Huckabee would find and eliminate corruption and wasteful spending as he did in Arkansas. When Gov. Huckabee first took office in AR in 1996 the first thing he did was to set up a hot line for taxpayers to report corruption in the government. He got 126 calls the first DAY. Gov. Huckabee reduced taxes and spending in places where it was wasteful and corrupt and increased taxes to fix roads and schools. But in the end, the tax burden on the taxpayers was the same. There is a lot of wasteful spending in the US government. He also wants to eliminate the IRS and implement the fair tax (learn more at fairtax.org). That would save the government billions just to get rid of that bureaucracy It can be done..