Posted on 03/09/2007 6:44:43 PM PST by LdSentinal
Periodically, I get e-mails from supporters of the presidential candidacy of Alpine Rep. Duncan Hunter who express disbelief, befuddlement or fury, or a mix of all three, at my flat contention that he is a populist demagogue and anything but a principled conservative. These folks cannot fathom any talk that he's not free-trade, small-government Ronald Reagan reincarnated.
Here's a typical example of Hunterista reaction to my comment that he's been against trade deals that have been important boons to our economy:
You're supposed to be a columnist, an informed person. This is not an informed statement.
OK. If you don't believe me about Duncan Hunter's RRRINOitis, here's what the influential, admired-and-respected-in-conservative-circles Club for Growth has to say about him:
Like most Republicans, he's strong on tax cuts, but he's been part of the big government spending spree of the last 6 years. He also has a protectionist streak in him. Here are some of the more troubling votes:
NO on NAFTA YES on No Child Left Behind YES on Sarbanes-Oxley YES on the 2003 Medicare Drug Benefit NO on CAFTA YES on 2005 Highway Bill YES on the 527 bill (like most Republicans, he flip-flopped, having first voted NO on McCain-Feingold) Hunter also went 0 for 19 on the Flake anti-pork amendments.
Despite being a member of the Republican Study Committee, Hunter frequently votes NO on their fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)
We gave him a 49% on the 2005 Club for Growth scorecard. That places him 187th within the House GOP conference, out of roughly 230 members.
National Taxpayers Union shows a more telling trend. He was strong in the early 1990s, getting "B's" and one "A", but as time went by, like most politicians, his score dropped. For the past few years, he's been getting "C's".
Those Cs are incredibly generous. As CATO noted last year, with Duncan Hunter cheering him on ...
... President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn't cut enough spending to change his place in history, either.
Total government spending grew by 33 percent during Bush's first term. The federal budget as a share of the economy grew from 18.5 percent of GDP on Clinton's last day in office to 20.3 percent by the end of Bush's first term.
The Republican Congress has enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.
The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001. Under Bush, Congress passed budgets that spent a total of $91 billion more than the president requested for domestic programs.
And as bad as things are on the budget front, they're about to get a whole lot worse because of a pending nightmare that Duncan Hunter -- supposed tough guy, supposed truth-teller, supposed fiscal conservative -- has chosen to ignore. To borrow from what I wrote last year ...
... the single worst problem facing this country in coming years, with the possible exception of nuclear terrorism, is dealing with the massive fiscal impact of baby boomers retiring. As we slowly transition from a nation where there are 4 working adults for every adult getting Social Security and Medicare to a nation where that ratio is 2 to 1, we will face an incredible fiscal squeeze.
As a veteran member of Congress, Duncan Hunter knows this. He's heard the warnings, seen the bipartisan studies. So what did this self-declared fiscal conservative do in 2003? He voted to make the problem much, much, much worse by extending prescription drug benefits to seniors, three-quarters of whom already have coverage. The money that was saved by all the triumphant stands he claims to have taken is infinitesimal compared to the staggering long-term national debt he helped add with this one vote, which was tantamount to civic arson.
Yeah, right, our Duncan's a fiscal conservative. ... He loves spending your grandkids' money, and by the truckload.
Duncan Hunter is no Ronald Reagan. To those who say Ronald Reagan really wasn't Ronald Reagan -- that government didn't get smaller when he was president -- well, he tried harder than any president in modern times to get Congress to control spending and wipe out whole government agencies. By contrast, Hunter and the GOP Congress of 2001-2006 kept the national credit cards hanging on a string around their necks for easy and constant use.
You might want to Google Duncan Hunter and Randy Cunningham some time. You'll find all kinds of interesting information regarding the money he accepted from defense contractors from a whole lot of sources.
I know...they were all lying because they knew he would run for president one day.
If your city was up against the Mexican border and you had tens of thousands of illegals in your city costing the tax payers tens of millions of dollars you wouldn't make such a stupid comment.
Why don't you leave you doors open at night so others can come into your home and eat your food, use your credit cards or money, etc.
I had heard that Hunter was a "protectionist" which picqued my interest, but this voting record pretty much negates any "America First" qualities.
I would not even worry about the trade aspect if I were you. Some people hear that he's opposed to unfair trade practices in China and wrongly conclude he is protectionist. If we don't get the China problem under control, we may as well cede financial control of the U.S. to them.
Rep. Duncan Hunter's official Presidential website doesn't have a way to contact his Presidential campaign by e-mail, and his Congressional website e-mail address only involves his constituents from his California Congressional District. He needs to seriously read some feedback from conservatives from all over the U.S. Hunter also needs to seriously explain to a majority of conservatives about his positions on spending issues and on supporting the present, "screwy" campaign finance reform system. At this point, he's my first choice for '08 President, but I'm also seriously keeping an eye on Rep. Tom Tancredo, former Rep. Newt Gingrich, former Senator Fred Thompson, John Cox, and Rep. Ron Paul to see what happens with all of them and Rep. Duncan Hunter v.s. the present first tier GOP Presidential candidates. We still have a way to go in the '08 Presidential race. I'm hoping that the final GOP Presidential candidate, whoever that may be, is seriously ready for victory when the time comes. Any present Democratic Presidential candidate would truly be much worse as President than any of the present GOP Presidential candidates, and this even includes Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain. Voting for the "lesser of two evils" may become necessary yet again, and I seriously don't want a Democratic President again!
The only reason to debate Hunter's campaign is for the fun of it, because I guarantee you that he'll never become a contender in this election. He'll be lucky to reach Dennis Kucinich status.
You can google and find sites that say the earth is flat and we never went to the moon
Grow up
I gave up on HTML years ago when we lost so many italians. There's a capslock key on the keyboard and it works. When I copy & paste from some HTML doc into & out of other things like MSWord, it doesn't work. You can read some posts that once had ITALICS but when they get copied, it loses the italics and much of the meaning. So until that gets straightened out, I'm sticking with the things that survive the process.
"I had heard that Hunter was a "protectionist" which picqued my interest, but this voting record pretty much negates any "America First" qualities."
Exactly, he's a DC insider like the rest of them. We need a governor/mayor ;) with an outsider perspective. BTW, love the sig.
He should be, during the 2000 Election cycle he accepted $191,473 in donations from defense industries.
Yes, that would also explain his receiving $191,473 in donations from defense industries in the 2000 election cycle. It will be interesting to compare the list of donors/donations with his record on the committee.
In a word, yes. If a young jihadi in, say, Saudi Arabia or Iran wants to go fight the Great Satan today, where does he go? Well, clearly, he goes to Iraq, because the media is telling him that the US is losing to his buddies. He thinks he can go to Iraq and kill the soldiers of the Great Satan. In reality, our soldiers are mostly killing the terrorists, not the other way around. The basic answer to your question is, yes, this is a smart strategy. We attract terrorists from around the world to Iraq precisely because they *think* they can hurt us there. The truth is, they mostly end up getting killed. If we don't provide that battleground then the terrorists come over here, and *we* mostly end up getting killed. On September 11, a mere 19 terrorists killed around 3,000 Americans. In Iraq, any given 3,000 terrorists are probably lucky to kill 19 Americans. I like those numbers quite a bit better, although any American deaths are regrettable. So yes, I'd much prefer that the young jihadi go up against our soldiers rather than spend his time looking for our women and children at home and around the world.
Is it perfect? Definitely not. Is it better than your strategy of hiding in a hole and hoping the terrorist world forgets about us? Yep.
What is your point here?
Of course not...it was only his buddy Cunningham who was convicted.
Great post, and we thank you!!
Top right on his site where it says contact us.
It gives you several options how to contact him
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