Ahead of the Curve

Don't you want your president to be forward-thinking? To drive change, not merely tag along. To put forth innovative ideas, not rehash the same old platitudes. In short, to be a leader and not a follower. Of course you do.

Governor Mike Huckabee is just that. Consider what we've seen on the campaign trail, as Governor Huckabee has led the conversation on many issues, and other candidates have trailed or parroted his ideas. Or will soon.

• The most innovative and bold idea on any candidate's platform – Republican or Democrat – in the FairTax.
  
• Energy independence within 8 years & an understanding that it is a national security issue
  
• Exploration of switchgrass as an alternate biofuel
  
• Stimulating OUR economy – not China's – by investing in our infrastructure. Namely, to start with, widening I-95.
  
• Recognizing, several months ahead of the other GOP candidates and the pundits, that the economy was weakening (about a minute into the video)
  
• A focus on actual health, not just health insurance or the medical system
  
• A call for total government transparency
  
• A bill of rights for our military veterans
  
• A detailed plan to address illegal immigration
  
• A focus on whole-brain education
  
• Closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, a position for which he was criticized by Fred Thompson, only to have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs come out just a few days later saying the exact same thing, agreeing with Governor Huckabee
  

The Governor is stereotyped as a bumpkin', a view that i count as bigotry. Prejudice against southerners, against evangelicals. But he is leading the intellectual charge.

Governor Huckabee at Heritage

I am a long-time member of (more than that, i make an automatic monthly contribution to) the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank based in Washington DC. Their primary purpose is to assist political leaders, particularly Senators and House members, craft public policy that comports with conservative principles. Well, heck, here is their mission statement.

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Early in his tenure as Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee presented a lecture at Heritage called "Cutting Taxes and Other Great Ideas for Congress". I have highlighted some good excerpts…

• In Arkansas…, there are conservatives who believe that government really does need to get smaller, not larger; who believe that the best government is the most local government; who believe that taxes should be smaller; and who try to bring more efficiencies into what we do in government. And the good news is that this message of smaller, more efficient and accountable government is selling in our state.
  
• The executive branch cannot accomplish anything without working with the legislative branch, sitting down with them, negotiating, and treating the members with respect because they were elected just like I was.
  
• One of the greatest challenges that I faced as governor of a state like Arkansas was that for 162 years the tax burden on Arkansans always went up. It never went down… But, for the first time in 1997 and again this session, the old paradigm was no longer valid. The big battle was no longer, "Which taxes will we raise and by how much?" but, "Which taxes will we cut and by how much?"
  
• We passed a comprehensive income tax relief package, marking the first time in Arkansas' history that the state had seen a major, broad-based income tax cut. This $90.6 million tax relief measure lessened the tax burden on Arkansans in many ways.
  
  • Ended the income tax marriage penalty
    
  • Below the poverty line? No income tax
    
  • Ended bracket creep by indexing to inflation
    
  • Doubled the allowable child care credit
    
  • Eliminated the capital gains tax on sale of primary home
    
• In both 1997 and 1999, we produced balanced budgets with tax relief in the budgets. In other words, we budgeted for tax relief. By finding savings to pay for new programs, we proved it was possible to propose new and needed programs by reallocating resources while still providing tax relief. This has never before been accomplished in Arkansas.
  
• Character-based education has become a very important component of our education structure in Arkansas, and school districts have options on how they implement it… Children need to understand there are consequences for living out virtues, and we've already seen some pretty convincing results: discipline problems are going down and the learning atmosphere has improved dramatically.
  
• In addition to making it possible, through the Fair Dismissal Act, to get rid of teachers who are not doing the job and who are violating their contract, we also passed a bill that will provide financial incentives up to $2,000 a year of additional money for teachers who show extraordinary excellence in teaching.
  
• 44 percent of the people on welfare a year and a half ago are now off the welfare rolls and are in jobs and working.
  
• These are some of the things we've done, and they are proof positive that cutting taxes, making government performance-driven and accountable to the people, and bringing some sense of real fairness to government's overall approach is making life better for all our citizens.
  

Now does that look anything like a liberal to you? Don't believe the nonsense you hear from cranky political opponents. And consider that, around the same time Governor Huckabee delivered this address and set his state on a new path of conservatism, John McCain and Fred Thompson were in the Senate cooking up some new bitter brew called campaign finance reform, and this same duo would soon be strategizing to make McCain the 2000 GOP nominee for president.

Issue: Economics

I'm not going to type a long defense of Governor Huckabee's Economic record or plan. Instead, I'm simply going to point everyone to the video of Governor Huckabee's speech to the Detroit Economic Club last Friday.

There should be a new rule that any critic must address what the Governor said in this speech before being allowed to attack him as a "Liberal."


Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5:



This is one of the best speeches I have ever heard, and I have two degrees in Speech Communication, so I've studied some of the best.

Let the Parents Decide

Pinging off Calvinator's post below about school choice, i found this interview with Governor Huckabee by Cybercast News Service (Brent Bozell's news outlet) about his views on education matters. If this issue is important for you, it's worth your time to read the entire interview. There are some tough questions, and you may not agree with everything, but it's a good read. He touches on the constitutionality of a federal Dept. of Education, on school choice & voucher proposals, on prayer in public schools, and similar topics.

Here are some highlights (emphases added)...

Q. On December 12, the Concord Monitor ran a story saying that you had met with the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association and that the union was endorsing you. The report said: "Huckabee became the first Republican yesterday to be endorsed by the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association. In a short press conference, President Rhonda Wesolowski lauded Huckabee's opposition to school vouchers and his commitment to arts and music education." Three days later, on December 15, Catholic Online published an interview with you, and they asked: "Catholics believe that parents are the first teachers of their children and that they should be able to choose how to extend their teaching office from among all of the available alternatives; public schools, charter schools, private and parochial schools and home schools. What is your position on parental choice in education?" You responded to them: "I support parental choice. Parents are much better able to make those decisions for their children than a government bureaucrat." So, which is it? Do you oppose vouchers, which the New Hampshire NEA believes is your position, or do you support school choice that would even allow children to go to Catholic schools, as you told Catholic Online?

A. There is no inconsistency, because what I believe is, first of all, education is a mom and dad decision, not an Uncle Sam position. We ought to empower parents and let them make the best choices for their kids. I'm probably one of the few candidates you have ever seen that has the recommendation of an NEA chapter, but also has the strong national recommendation of home-schoolers. And the reason is because I ultimately do believe it is a mother-and-father decision. The state's purpose is to empower and enable parents to make the decision they believe is right.

But I believe if you are going to have public schools, make them the best they can be. I don't support federally mandating vouchers. If a state wishes to implement a voucher program, they have to decide how it works, and how well it works, and what the criteria would be.What I don't want to do is to have the federal government coming down and telling all 50 states here is how you are going to fund education, here is what vouchers are going to look like. Because in some states, for example mine, it would be very problematic to create a statewide voucher system when most of our schools are rural, they're small, they are miles from another school, the economies of scale simply wouldn't necessarily make it that easy to implement a widespread voucher system. But if local districts wished to do it, if states wish to do it, I think that's fine. It goes back to the basic concept that this is a state's decision.

On home-schools and his record in Arkansas:
When I was governor, I passed some of the friendliest home-school legislation in the country. I was the first governor in the history of America to appoint a home-school parent to state board of education. She served as one of the best members we ever had on the state board. We made it so that parents had more choices. We improved charter schools, and expanded charter schools.

More about the Murphy Commission voucher proposal:
The one area that really did not go well was the idea of implementing vouchers. And, again, there were two reasons. Let me get back to them. One was the opposition we had from Christian school administrators, who were fearful that once you take government money, you take government control. Many of them said they would lose their distinctive nature if they were forced to be under government regulations and government mandates that they frankly didn't want. They did not want that level of interference.

But the second thing that happened, or would potentially happen, was you would have students who if they came to the school without a level that met the full tuition, one of two things: they either then say, look, you are going to have to make up the difference as a private school or we'll sue for discrimination, or, if they win that, then the only people able to go were those who could subsidize the rest of the voucher, and most of the students in my state would have been unable to access it, because there were only a few districts large enough, with the economies of scale, that could have actually implemented the full-scale voucher system.

Issue: School Choice

One of Fred Thompson's attacks on Governor Huckabee in the South Carolina debate was that our favorite candidate opposes School Choice. Other media talking heads have parroted this same accusation.

Simply put, it isn't true.

The Club for Growth (no fan of Huckabee for sure) wrote this:

Governor Huckabee's record on school choice is mixed. On the one hand, he fought hard to protect the rights of parents to home school their children and was a vocal proponent of charter schools (Arkansas Time 09/22/05). In 1997, he supported a proposal that would expand charter school eligibility to include public and private universities, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations (AP 02/12/97). He signed legislation in 1999 that allowed for as many as 12 charter schools to be established in Arkansas, an important achievement given the state's onerous laws governing charter schools (Time 07/10/00).

On the other hand, Governor Huckabee is on record opposing the most important element of genuine school choice-voucher programs that allow poor students in failing public schools to attend private schools and inject much needed competition into a decrepit public education system-because of a concern about government control of parochial schools (Arkansas Times 09/22/05).

Found in: Mike Huckabee's Record on Economic Issues

In short, Governor Huckabee does not oppose School Choice, but he did and does oppose School Vouchers. He's not alone among Conservatives in this regard. Texas Eagle Forum came out in opposition to Vouchers for the very reason Huckabee cites. (Private school vouchers: A conservative view). Governor Huckabee favors expanding the Child Tax Credit (until the Income Tax goes away in its entirety) to assist families in paying private school tuition if they'd like. He also supports policies to allow parents to choose among public schools.

The next time you hear this attack, just remember that Vouchers are not the same thing as School Choice.