Results of Freedom of Information Act requests (FOI): November
13, 2007
1.
Parks & Tourism re: monies spent on Spanish
language advertising…….the response from Parks & Tourism contained 12 ½
pounds of data, and did not include the specifics hoped for. I have found through experience that if a
large net is not cast the government agencies will obfuscate.
I will say here, and this applies to the
other 3 FOI’s, are works in progress.
The initial response from the P & T Director Richard Davies posed
many more questions than answers. In
weighing the data received and the questions posed demands a public forum to
address the possibility of state laws being flagrantly violated, conflicts of
interest, and ethical violations.
After pouring through the 12 ½ lbs, I found
it appropriate to speak to Mr. Davies personally. I explained to him the data I wanted was
absent; namely the amount of money being spent on advertising to Hispanics, the
markets targeted, the reasons for their campaign. I asked Mr. Davies did he not understand that
he was in violation of state law by advertising in the Spanish language and
well over 51% of his target audience are criminals (illegals)….he did not
disagree.
What was revealed on close examination of
the data was that the agencies, with references to time spent, production costs, test markets, etc.
are in the process of increasing dramatically.
The last contract P & T signed called for a $30 million increase in
their advertising endeavors. The bottom line conclusion I have reached, this is
a not-so-veiled invitation for illegals to come to Arkansas for
employment.
Facts that did come out of the data.
A. In addition to Parks & Tourism, the
Arkansas State Police are also involved in Spanish speaking ads.
B.
Aristotle and Cranford, Johnson are the 2 ad agencies of choice and
enjoy a no bid monopoly. Both agencies hire an inordinate number of ex-Arkansas
state employees.
C.
It appears the 2 agencies are awarded financial gain from the state and
also receive financial remuneration from the distribution of print and
broadcast media to Spanish outlets, i.e. Univision, La Latina, etc. (That’s receiving
cash, coming and going)
D.
Violation of Ark. State law– English is our official language, passed
in the 80’s, with no apparent means of enforcement, and I feel reasonably sure
was done on purpose.
E.
The data points to Andres Chao, Director of the illegal Mexican
Consulate, being instrumental in directing much of the dialogue and promotions
dealing with Hispanics, through P & T.
This as a direct slap at Arkansas citizens
for our state government to have the audacity to spend taxpayer dollars
directed mostly at an illegal market, i.e. Mexicans and the corporations who
hire—all in violation of U.S. &
Arkansas’ laws.
It’s worth mentioning again that the
chit-chat between intra & inter agencies memos is indicative that P & T
is committed to spending more of your earnings in what I believe to be
absolutely an illegal operation.
Furthermore, there is a nexus between P & T and a number of other
government & civil entities, which does not bode well for the citizens of
Arkansas. We will explore these
tentacles in a public forum.
The indicators I have pursued demonstrate
conclusively that citizens have no active part in the affairs of Arkansas state
government due to entrenched career bureaucrats and politicians. Each of these agencies appear to operate as
private fiefdoms. In all likelihood more
FOI’s are on the way.
2.
Sebastian County Sheriff Atkinson re: his personal part & authority for using
taxpayer equipment and personnel to protect 15,000-18,000 illegal Mexicans and
the illegal behavior of Collier Wenderoth & Russ Bragg of OK Foods’ 1-3 day
affair at Ben Geren County Park. Also
how much taxpayer money was used.
The response from Sheriff Atkinson was a
non-response. His Chief Deputy Tom
Young, with a curt reply, “no records exist as requested in items 1-5â€.
I called Sebastian County Prosecutor Gunner
DeLay and informed him of the response from Atkinson, at which time he
suggested I call County Judge Hudson and determine his participation in the
affair. On contacting Judge Hudson, his
immediate response was he had no information regarding the 1-3 day OK Food’s
affair, but he would get back in touch.
After a few days and some prodding from Prosecutor DeLay, Judge Hudson
called and sent a copy of OK Foods check for $1,000 made out to the Judge’s
office.
I do not know who paid for the cleanup of
the park and Atkinson’s insolence will not go unnoticed. He too will be on the agenda for the public
forum.
3.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital: the cost of its
providing a heart transplant to a foreign national, the length of stay, etc.
and if Vicente Fox really gave $200,000 toward that endeavor as he bragged on
Larry King Live.
Response from Sherry Furr, Chief
Counsel of ACH…informed me that ACH is a private, not for Profit Corporation. Huge revelation. The 501c3 Corporation, compliments of the
Ark. Legislature, is indeed curious.
Furr states that taxpayers only provide a limited amount of public
funds.
I called Roger Norman, Chief
Accountant for the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, and he indicated that
the ACH was privy to other funding from various taxpayer sources.
Question: the ACH is dependent on physicians from the
Univ. of Ark. Medical Center, which is far and above the most costly aspect of
running a hospital. Why would the
legislature give a state entity (UAMC) and the ACH, which definitely have
substantial taxpayer dollars involved, the ability to circumvent the
Legislative Joint Auditing Committee and the FOIA?
As each of these FOI’s show in some
depth, government entities through the years, compliments of Governors and
legislatures, have conferred shall we say, immunity, put another way made said
agencies impervious to public inquiry.
Certainly, questions will be asked
why segments of taxpayer supported Univ. of Ark. Agencies are extricated from
citizen purview, and why foreign nationals are afforded healthcare not
available to U.S. citizens. To be
determined will be the exact amount of funding from hospitals poured into ACH.
4.
Arkansas Dept. of Human Services: the prenatal care
costs, numbers, services, etc. given to illegal alien women. A brief background on the legislation
advocating prenatal for illegal Mexican women and OTM’s. Open borders, cheap labor advocate, former
Gov. Mike Huckabee presented a bill to the Ark. State Legislature to confer
free prenatal care to illegals. Bill
passed by overwhelming majority.
DHS Director Roy Jeffus
estimated the cost per birth would be $1,300.
He predicted the program would cost a maximum of $1.3 million per
yr. So much for the stupidity of Jeffus
and the dysfunctional state legislature.
The date of the estimation was April, 2004. The reality was the start up cost for the
program was $4.3 million. Jeffus and the
legislature failed to factor in the cost of prescriptions, transportation,
translation, social services, etc. etc. and the cost of the Anchor Babies
produced by these nighttime sexual extravaganza’s. Anchor babies by law can occupy the welfare
trough until 21 yrs of age.
N.W. Arkansas is portrayed as
the economic hot spot in the state. It
is interesting to note that with almost zero unemployment, Washington &
Benton counties have the largest number of alien pregnant women on free
prenatal care, and concomitantly have the largest illegal Hispanic population. Why should this be the case? Some of the wealthiest corporations in the
U.S. are illegally hiring the illegal Hispanic population, i.e. Tyson’s,
George’s, etc.
At the inception of the program
there were 5,832 illegal women enrolled in the program between July 1, 2004
& June 30, 2005 producing 1,097 anchor babies….why so few anchor babies
produced? These numbers increased from
July 1, 2005 to April 30, 2006 to 8,748 enrolled with 1,601 anchor babies
produced…according to DHS records. These numbers vary from various newspaper
reports and the numbers I received in early October.
The 2 Senators who spearheaded
prenatal care for illegal women were then Senators Beebe (now Governor) and
Moril Harriman (now Tyson lobbyist and currently on Beebe’s staff), coupled
with Gwatney, Bradford, and Ross.
The most recent FOI produces
numbers that tend to be skewed and contradict the numbers mentioned above, e.g.
the numbers of non-qualified alien pregnant women enrolled in the program in
2005 were 2,070, in 2006 were 3,191, in 2007 were 3,479. These latest numbers
show a dramatic escalation.
Jeffus apparently, from his
initial comments, concluded the number of illegal pregnancies would be a static
number…typical bureaucratic ineptness. The total program estimated cost from July, 04
to June, 05 was $3,277,350.72…borne on the backs of Arkansas middleclass
taxpayers. Think, 2007…then think again,
the mass exodus of illegals from Oklahoma & Tennessee and soon to be
Missouri for Arkansas. The Fed pays 80% (that’s us) and the state pays 20%
(that’s us) for these criminal forced redistribution programs.
The information received in this
latest FOI request appears to be fragmentary at best, and the DHS is almost
impervious to inquiring eyes demanding to know the full scope of this
ill-advised at the least and unconstitutional program.
Gov. Beebe last week, Nov. 6,
2007 showed his insolence toward Arkansas citizens by giving his seal of
approval to the Arkansas Friendship Coalition, a seditious group hell bent on
open borders and cheap labor, not only for corporate largesse but for certain
religious orders, and the various government employees.
Citizens we must demand
immediately the Governor shuck his alliance with corporate management, call a
special legislative session, repeal this
criminally unconstitutional program
providing free prenatal care for illegals, and a myriad of ancillary services,
and craft laws meting out severe penalties to those entities hiring illegals,
i.e. Tyson’s, Carlyle, George’s, OK Foods, Cargill, etc. etc.
Should Gov. Beebe fail to act on
these critical issues, he should be recalled immediately.
Recall that DHS Director Roy
Jeffus estimated cost per birth would be $1300.
Also remember he failed to include the ongoing myriad of ancillary
services provided for these women and the anchor babies they produced. My
research showed it can be easily proven that each of these pregnancies can cost
taxpayers in the range of $7,500 to $15,000 per birth. Consider additionally
the environmental and health hazards the illegals bring to the table. The first one comes to mind is the TB carrier,
to TB infection, to TB disease…which was wiped out many years before the
illegal Mexican invasion.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58629
Chucking the Huckster
Posted: November 12, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
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U.S. Rep. Ron Paul |
Far be it from me to defy the force that is Chuck Norris. After
all, it is a recognized fact that we are not living in a democracy, but
rather a Chucktatorship. It is less well-known, however, that Chuck
Norris does not actually write his columns here at WND, they simply
assemble themselves out of fear.
While it is good to see that the living legend has not fallen
for the Hillary-lite candidates offered by the Republican Party elite,
I fear that in rejecting the Tennessee Toad as well as the
media-approved triumvirate of Romney, Giuliani and McCain, he has
bought into the charade of a second-rate Arkansas charlatan.
There is no doubting that Mike Huckabee talks a promising game,
but that is a job requirement for a preacher or a self-help guru, not a
president. Unfortunately, Huckabee’s gubernatorial record, as chronicled in no little detail last week by Ilana Mercer,
is more than spotty, it is downright rife with the very sort of warning
signs that many conservatives now wish that they had heeded when George
W. Bush was first running for president.
Moreover, like most of the other candidates, Huckabee is
unelectable because he basically mimics Hillary’s position on the two
primary issues of the election cycle. He is pro-occupation,
pro-imperial and pro-delusional, being very hawkish on dealing with the
imaginary threat posed by Iran, while at the same time being dovish on
the matter of the actual invasion of the country by tens of millions of
foreign nationals. One has to wonder if Huckabee would change his mind
were Iranians physically to invade the country armed only with infants
instead of pursuing a weapons technology in the obvious interest of
avoiding a third American-sponsored overthrow of their government in
the last 50 years.
Now, Mr. Norris did a nice job last week
of demonstrating that Huckabee is less egregiously anti-American than
most of his fellow Republican candidates on the issue of the ongoing
Mexican migration. However, in doing so, he missed two key points. The
first is the way in which history shows very clearly that the effects
of a migration of this size, legal or illegal, will permanently alter
the target culture. One need only analyze Mexican history to realize
that the politics of Spanish-speaking immigrants are, quite literally,
entirely foreign to the American political spectrum and they are more
likely to change the American spectrum than they are to be shaped by
it.
(Column continues below)
Second, and more importantly, Norris and Huckabee are both
confusing government policies with private religious responsibilities.
One cannot be “charitable” via the mechanism of government nor can one
impose “Christian” measures through the passage of laws and
regulations; this is the same socially liberal thinking which
left-wingers use to justify anti-poverty programs. To use the example
of children coming to Jesus Christ as an argument for anchor babies and
against the deportation of underage illegal immigrants borders on the
blasphemous, as the analogy equates American citizenship with
Christianity and the federal government with Jesus Christ.
Huckabee is in many ways the philosophical successor to George
W. Bush, and as such, it should be no surprise that he appeals to the
same sort of Christian conservative who bought into the vision of
“compassionate conservativism.” But the vision is a false one, a
deceptive one, and just as many Christian conservatives now regret
their 2000 and 2004 votes for the current president, those who support
Huckabee would likely come to regret that support in the unlikely event
that the man should gain traction over the course of the early
primaries and go on to upset Mitt Romney and the other frontrunners.
The reality that Christians must keep in mind is this: Any
Republican candidate who does not abide strictly by the U.S.
Constitution is an oathbreaker and a proven liar. His words are
meaningless, his promises are null and void, because he has already
demonstrated that he will not hesitate to break his word in the
interest of exercising political power.
Mike Huckabee may be a good man, but like most of his rivals,
he has openly stated that he has no intention of abiding by the
Constitution. Therefore, he should be rejected as a potential president
by every Christian, every conservative and every constitutionalist,
especially in light of the fact that there is another candidate whose
personal integrity and respect for the Constitution are unquestioned,
even by his enemies. I suggest, therefore, that it is Ron Paul, and not
Mike Huckabee, who is far worthier of the martial arts master’s regard.
Vox Day
is a Christian libertarian opinion columnist. He is a member of the
SFWA, Mensa and IGDA, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit
his blog, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and spirited discussions open to all.
MIKE
HUCKABEE: WISHY-WASHY REPUBLICAN
By
Richard A. Viguerie
Some voters pining for a principled conservative Republican
presidential candidate are pinning their hopes on former governor of Arkansas
Mike Huckabee. But while Gov. Huckabee stands strong on some issues like
abortion that are important to social conservatives, a careful examination of
his record as governor reveals that he is just another wishy-washy Republican
who enthusiastically promotes big government.
>
>The Baptist preacher entered politics in an unlikely way for a
Republican—as the result of a meeting with Joycelyn Elders, reports The New
Republic. As director of the Arkansas department of health under
Gov. Bill Clinton, Dr. Elders opined that preachers should “stop moralizing
from the pulpitâ€. Spinning into damage-control mode, Gov. Clinton asked
Mike Huckabee, head of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, to meet with Dr.
Elders. Rev. Huckabee came away from that meeting uncomfortably impressed
with the “lady who genuinely believes what she’s saying and is deep in her
convictionsâ€. He reasoned, “[I]f people like her are creating the public
policies that will determine how our kids are going to be educated, and the
atmosphere, then maybe we need to get out of the stands and get out on the
field and get our jerseys dirty.â€
>
>But while Mike Huckabee praises Dr. Elders for her dedication to her own
beliefs, he has disparaged principled conservatives as “blind
puristsâ€. And his record as governor certainly suggests that Mike
Huckabee is not as firm in his devotion to conservative ideals as the former
U.S. Surgeon General remains to liberal notions.
>
> “A fiscal conservative is a person who truly understands that it’s
not a problem in the federal government that our taxes are too low,†the former
governor told the crowd at CPAC in 2007. “It’s a problem that our
spending is too high and out of control.â€
>
>But by Gov. Huckabee’s own definition, there’s serious reason to doubt
that he’s a truly fiscal conservative himself.
>
>Much of conservatives’ concern about Gov. Huckabee centers on his record
of raising taxes. He signed Americans for Tax Reform’s no-tax pledge, but
only after dismissing such covenants as dangerous. He blasts the fiscally
conservative Club for Growth as the “Club for Greedâ€. He publicly opposed
repealing a tax on groceries and medicine, though he claims that he’s “always
philosophically supported†axing the tax. According to ATR, after his 10
years in office, Gov. Huckabee had raised the state’s sales tax by 37 percent,
motor fuel taxes by 16 percent, and cigarette taxes by 103 percent.
>
>Not surprisingly, all these tax increases allowed for greater
spending. According to Americans for Tax Reform, state spending under Gov.
Huckabee rose by 65.3 percent during 1996 to 2004. The number of workers
on the state’s payroll increased by 20 percent during his tenure, and its
general debt obligation rose by nearly $1 billion. The spending increase
is due largely to the creation of new government programs and the expansion of
existing ones.
>
>Though he told The Washington Times that he supports “empowering
people to make their own decisionsâ€, Gov. Huckabee has consistently initiated
and supported government meddling in the market economy. Not only did he
increase Arkansas’s minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.25 per hour, but he even
encouraged the U.S. Congress to do the same thing nationally. He ordered
Arkansas regulatory agencies to investigate “price-gouging†in the nursing-home
industry and threatened to launch a government investigation of “gouging†on
gas prices after September 11, 2001. He signed a bill forbidding private
companies from increasing prices on services like roof repair and tree removal
by 10 percent in advance of a natural disaster.
>
>He is on record in support of big government programs that elbow out
private-sector solutions. For instance, Gov. Huckabee drove ARKids first,
a multimillion-dollar government program to provide health insurance for 70,000
children. He supported President George W. Bush’s 2003 massive expansion
of Medicare by adding a prescription-drug benefit. He called the No Child
Left Behind Act, which increased federal education spending by 48 percent and
expanded big-government control of local schools, “the greatest education
reform effort of the federal government in my lifetimeâ€. Although
Huckabee advocates a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, as governor he
proposed granting in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens.
>
>Mike Huckabee’s wishy-washiness is perhaps best exemplified in the story
of Wayne Dumond, the most bizarre and tragic episode of the governor’s entire
tenure. A few weeks after taking office, Gov. Huckabee announced his
intention to free Mr. Dumond, who had served seven years of a life+20 sentence
for the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old girl. The following month,
the governor met with the parole board; soon afterwards, the board voted to
free Mr. Dumond on the condition that he move to another state.
>
>Although he told National Review that he “executed more people
than any governor in the history of†Arkansas, Gov. Huckabee insists that the
“concept of Christian forgiveness requires that we keep open the process of
parole†even for violent felons.
>
>The parole board’s action made Mr. Dumond’s pardon application
unnecessary, so Gov. Huckabee denied the pardon but sent him a letter
affirming, “My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that
parole is the best way for your reintroduction to society to take place.â€
>
>Mr. Dumond’s release was delayed because no other state would take the
convicted rapist. After two and one-half more years, the parole board set
him free in Arkansas. The following year, he moved to Missouri, where he
sexually assaulted and murdered a 39-year-old woman.
>
>As the predictable political fireworks burst all around him, Gov.
Huckabee tried to hide behind the claim that he had denied Mr. Dumond’s pardon
application. “My only official action was to deny his clemency,†Gov.
Huckabee insists, defensively glossing over his oft-stated earlier preference
for Mr. Dumond to go free.
>
>Gov. Huckabee’s poor judgment in the Dumond case is serious, but his
failure to acknowledge responsibility publicly is truly disgraceful in a man
who would be president.
>
>But it fits the pattern of his inability to hold a principled stance with
courage and conviction. Gov. Huckabee called no-tax pledges
“irresponsible†but then signed one. He wants to fence illegal immigrants
out, but to give them cheap tuition while they’re here. He calls
conservatives “blind purists†but poses as one of us.
>
>One who has cut through the fog of Gov. Huckabee’s wishy-washiness and
found something she likes is the woman who’s indirectly responsible for his political
career. Joycelyn Elders says she’s “truly impressed. I feel he
really did things that I appreciated.â€
Another edition in the life and crimes of Rudolph
Giuliani.
The so-called Conservative wing of the Republican party,
i.e. evangelicals, the rapture crowd, have given their tacit endorsement to
Rudolph Giuliani. (See parts 1 & 2, and
then fast forward to this edition.)
Giuliani has surrounded himself with Israel-firsters, the
very ones who led us into the Iraqi carnage resulting in the deaths and maiming
of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and tens of thousands of American
troops, and no end in sight. A five year
debacle that has lasted longer than WW II with no hope of a successful conclusion
by any standard, but the megalomaniac Bush and his neocon handlers are quite
willing to continue this bloodbath. Initially, I gave the Congress and the Senate
a pass by describing them as complicit, but as time passed, I now recognize
that both bodies are guilty of high crimes.
Giuliani, accompanied by all the presidential candidates,
both Republican and Democrat, except Ron Paul, want to pursue this “empire
building†tragedy with zest.
Who are these fanatics who surround Giuliani? The same ones that now surround Bush and
Cheney. They are pro-Israel
Trotskyites. At this writing they are by
name David Frum, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, Stephen Emerson, and Martin
Kramer. Podhoretz’ son-in-law is Elliot Abrams who created the Iraqi myth of “weapons
of mass destructionâ€. These pro-Israel
war-hawks received their training from Irving Kristol, the Godfather of neo-conservatism
and a cheer-leader for “eternal war for eternal peaceâ€, for Israel’s benefit.
Pipes, Emerson, and Kramer created the spy network that
resonates throughout America’s college campuses. It is called “Campus Watchâ€. Universities’ professors every utterance is
monitored by Zionist groups such as ADL and JDL, and other un-American Jewish
organizations.
Much like the 5 Israelis sitting on a car on the Jersey
side of the East River cheering as the Twin Towers came down, the likes of
Pipes, Emerson, and Kramer celebrated the desecration of the Constitution and
Bill of Rights after the passage of the Patriot Act.
As noted elsewhere, Israel-firster Michael Mukasey, a fellow
who refuses to state that water-boarding is torture and just appointed U.S. Attorney
General is also in bed with Giuliani.
Forgive me, I digress, the fact that torture is even thought about in
our once admired preeminent Republic, but
purses our lips daily is a betrayal of the ideals and philosophies our
Founders put forward. Mukasey’s son is
a senior partner in the law firm of Bracewell, Giuliani, the winners in Texas
Gov. Perry’s backroom criminal dealings, resulting in the creation of the Trans-Texas corridor,
and if implemented guarantees the demise of U.S. sovereignty.
It is indeed a depressing and disconcerting thought to
think that most Americans are married to these two criminally corrupt political
parties and are more than willing to vote for either of these destructors of
liberty—I speak of, of course, Clinton and Giluliani.
Kindest regards,
Joe McCutchen
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58592
Huck’s for Huck – Paul’s for America
Posted: November 9, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Phyllis Schlafly, conservatism’s “first lady,” had this to say about
presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: “He
destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas and left the Republican
Party a shambles, yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on
George W. Bush as a ‘compassionate conservative’ are now trying to sell
us on Huckabee.”
“He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative
movement,” another of Huckabee’s countless conservative detractors told
the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund. “He’s hostile to free trade, hiked
sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and
presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation
rate.”
“[Huckabee] was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal,”
reveals Betsy Hagan. The Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle
Forum was a key backer of Huckabee’s early runs for office, and was
once “his No. 1 fan,” explains Fund. Hagan now cautions that, “Just
like Bill Clinton [Huckabee] will charm you, but don’t be surprised if
he takes a completely different turn in office.”
So too has Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator been
out-and-about chatting to folks in Arkansas. A fair number of them
describe Huckabee disdainfully as “a guy with a thin skin, a nasty
vindictive streak and a long history of imbroglios about questionable
ethics.” For instance, Huckabee used public money to fund his family’s
Falstaffian appetites, and “tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of
furniture donated to the governor’s mansion.” He was also in the habit
of scolding “the media for reporting [his] transgressions rather than
demanding that the transgressors make things right.” Consequently,
Huckabee had been investigated 14 times and reprimanded five times by
the ethics commission.
(Column continues below)
Like Michael Dukakis, Huckabee waded into the moral miasma of
penal abolition. Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988,
fought to secure a prison furlough for convicted murderer Willie
Horton. Horton went on to assault a Massachusetts man and rape his
fiancée during his recreational weekend off. Wayne Dumond, the
recipient of Huckabee’s helping hand, raped and murdered a Missouri
woman. When asked about his difficult-to-defend role “in an apparently illegal and unrecorded closed-door meeting with the parole board lobbying on behalf of a rapist,” Huckabee has offered a thesaurus of excuses.
On economics, Huckabee is also a habitual offender. The Club for
Growth, which is dedicated to promoting a “low-tax and
limited-government agenda,” has few good things to say about him.
Apparently, there is nothing invisible about Huckabee’s heavy
regulatory hand. His consistent contempt for the taxpayer has earned
him “a lifetime grade of D from the free-market Cato Institute.” “By
the end of his 10-year tenure,” writes the Club’s Andrew Roth, “Gov.
Huckabee was responsible for a 37 percent higher sales tax in Arkansas,
16 percent higher motor fuel taxes, and 103 percent higher cigarette
taxes.” State spending under Huckabee increased a whopping 65.3 percent
from 1996 to 2004, three times the rate of inflation.
GDP growth declines as the government’s share of the GDP rises.
Huckabee, that economic wrecking ball, inaugurated new programs and
expanded existing ones so that “the number of state government workers
rose 20 percent during his tenure, and the state’s general obligation
debt shot up by almost $1 billion.”
Needless to say, Huckabee hopped for joy when George Bush, his
evil ideological twin, passed a prescription-drug benefit that would
add trillions to the Medicare shortfall. But not even Bush stooped as
low as to support raising the minimum wage. As someone possessing “zero
intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement,” Huckabee
obliged. Understandably, he was incapable of grasping that fixing the
price of labor above market rate or the employee’s productivity
increases unemployment among the poor and the unskilled.
Huckabee’s philosophically limp conservatism led him to slip
between the sheets with the Democrats in his support for expanding the
SCHIP health-care program, and favoring the “cap-and-trade system to
limit global-warming emissions.” The last is a scam that’ll cause
massive job and income loss.
“F” for immigration: That’s how Roy Beck, president of “Numbers
USA,” has graded Huckabee on that front. It’s only fair to point out
that by sheer fluke Huckabee reversed his left-liberal stand on illegal
immigration when he decided to run for president.
The CAFTA and NAFTA so-called trade agreements are not free trade, but managed
trade. This is why Rep. Ron Paul, Mr. Liberty himself, has rejected
these usurpations. The Hegelian Huckabee, however, has sided with the
statists who’d sooner subordinate America’s sovereignty and allow
powerful, unaccountable bureaucracies to dictate the terms of trade.
Indeed, Ron Paul is the gold standard for personal and
political principles. “When it comes to limited government, there are
few champions as steadfast and principled as Rep. Ron Paul,” vouches
the Club for Growth. “On taxes, regulation and political free speech
his record is outstanding.”
Who other than Dr. Paul has “voted nine out of nine times against raising his own pay”? Who other than Dr. Paul has refused to partake in the obscene congressional pension scheme, a veritable shakedown of the indentured taxpayer?
Nicknamed “Dr. No” for voting against all legislation that isn’t expressly authorized by the Constitution, Ron Paul has never voted for an unbalanced budget; never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership; never voted to increase the power of the executive branch; and never taken a government-paid junket.
And he voted no on the Iraq war.
Huckabee, on the other hand, is as wasteful about lives and
limbs as he is about material assets not his own. During a recent
presidential debate, he recommended goose-stepping Americans into
supporting the Iraq war: “We can’t be divided. We have to be one nation
under God. That means if we make a mistake, we make it as a single
country: the United States of America, not the divided states of
America.” How convenient; Huckabee wishes to collectivize the
responsibility for the wrongs he went along with.
To this fascistic folderol, Dr. Paul replied: “No, when we make
a mistake, it is the obligation of the people, through their
representatives, to correct the mistake, not to continue the mistake.”
And it is the obligation of evangelicals to heed Mrs. Schlafly
and refrain from “selling” Americans on another confidence trickster
worthy of a P.T. Barnum circus, not of higher office.
Related special offer:
“Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause”
Ilana Mercer is the author of “Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Culture.” She is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an independent, nonprofit, economic policy think tank. To learn more about her work, visit IlanaMercer.com. If you would like to comment on this column, go to Ilana’s blog.
