Romney Campaign Press Release - "An Arkansan Tells the Huckabee Record Like It Is"

"A Taxing Endeavor:

An Arkansan Tells The Huckabee Record Like It Is"

By David J. Sanders
National Review
December 10, 2007

"...Jackson T. 'Steve' Stephens Jr. is second-guessing his one-time flirtation with elected office. 'If had it to do over again, I would probably challenge Huckabee,' he said of the short time in 2001 when he considered running against him for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

...

"As an Arkansan who knows Huckabee well, he feels obliged to make sure the rest of the country knows much more about his former governor's 'taxing and spending' ways.

...

"The Arkansas Policy Foundation, a state-based free-market think tank... launched a complete top-to-bottom review of Arkansas government called the Murphy Commission.

"At the time Stephens had high hopes for the new Republican governor, but the group's recommendations to stream-line and shrink state government were never implemented. 'These were wonderful recommendations that more than 200 volunteers worked on for two and a half years, and he didn't choose any of that. He is not a conservative, certainly not a fiscal conservative,' he said.

"In the summer of 2001... Huckabee's $160 million in tax cuts had shrunk to $13 million after he'd increased the sales tax, as well as taxes on diesel and gasoline, cigarettes, and other tobacco products.

...

"In spite of his pledge not to raise taxes in November 2001, in which he stated 'additional taxes hurt the economy,' Huckabee increased taxes on numerous occasions; by the time he left office in January 2007 he had increased taxes by a half-billion dollars.

"But that wasn't the first time Huckabee has broken his word on taxes.

...

"Stephens told the governor that he was supportive of a new citizen effort to get rid of the sales tax on food and medicine. Huckabee responded that he supported getting rid of the tax in principle, and that he wouldn't take a position on the citizen effort because he was busy focused on his own re-election. But later that same year, Huckabee began speaking out against the 'Axe the Food Tax' effort, which Arkansas voters rejected at the polls.

"Stephens thinks very little about Huckabee's new claims that he is an economic conservative or that he supports the Fair Tax.

..

[Stephens notes that] Huckabee never undertook any kind of fundamental reform of anything when he was governor.

"Stephens cautions conservatives who maybe inclined to consider Huckabee, but are less than flattered with the Bush administration's record on spending and growing government. 'At least President Bush cut taxes. With Mike Huckabee you don't even have that,' he warned.

To read the full article, please click here .