Posted on 10/22/2007 9:28:06 AM PDT by pissant
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a proudly conservative Republican, was determined to solve his state's fiscal crisis without raising taxes. Last year, he pulled it off, but the pain was everywhere: large layoffs and tuition increases at state colleges; reduced child-care subsidies for parents among the working poor; an end to dental care for adults on Medicaid.
This year, facing another 10 percent budget gap, Kempthorne said these were his only options left: Close the state parks; end state aid to public health clinics; abolish state support for community colleges and student financial aid; cut public education; slash Medicaid and programs for seniors and veterans.
(snip)
When Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) of Arkansas earlier proposed a sales tax increase to help close that state's budget shortfall, the idea received an icy reception from lawmakers. So when Huckabee went before those lawmakers earlier this month to deliver his State of the State address, he told them, in effect, he didn't care whether they adopted his proposal or came up with their own, but that Arkansas needed to raise more money to balance the budget.
"And if you deem that all new revenue sources, your proposals or mine, are indeed dead on arrival, then you'll be saying that teacher pay increases are dead, scholarships are dead, medicine for the elderly is dead, that long [prison] sentences are dead, and that we'll have to have a massive early release of thousands of inmates from the system," Huckabee said. "To be blunt, our problems aren't that simple, and the answers aren't either."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A Republican is never so brave or admirable as when he is raising taxes... At least according to the MSM.
It apparently works. The Values Voters though the was the cat’s meow.
The Values Voters do not care so much about taxes. They keep a different list.
Dude, I’m still moving to WY instead of ID or MT because of taxes. I vote with my feet.
I hear Wyoming is 140 degrees in the Summertime and covered by 20 feet of snow in the Wintertime, and has flies as big as crows, that carry off small unattended chidren.
At least that’s what all my friends in Wyoming say...
They claim they do care. But Huck has been giving him the “i’m a tax cutter” line of baloney as well. They believe him, even when he claims he’s gonna get tough on illegals. LOL
That’s the land of Brokeback Mountain, according to hollywood. LOL
So Huck had to brow beat a Democrat legislature into raising taxes.
You know how every Democrat demonstration starts about one thing, and then every stupid little interest group horns in until the whole thing collapses of it's own weight on internal conflicts? Same deal here.
The Values Voters care about one thing a great deal. They care about a few other things, but not quite as much.
Taxes and fiscal conservatism are way down on the list.
Fiscal cons will bolt. Huckabee is as divisive as Rudy.
Hucksterbee is a fraud...a tax raising illegal-alien loving liberal.
The Value Voters need to recheck their “values”
Who’d of thunk it?
Surely he was forced into it by circumstances beyond his control, kicking and screaming, etc...
You should see their “skeeter’s”, Grizzly Bears and Wolves.
Know how to tell a cowboy from Wyoming from a cowboy from Texas? The cowboy from Texas has $h!t on his boots and an cowboy from Wyoming has wool in his zipper.
Teton County has the largest per capita (or household, I don’t quite remember) US total tax (income, death, personal corporate, etc.) in the whole US. Other than Teton County, WY is not too likely BM oriented. ;-)
I’ve found that to be true and would recommend that no one from CA, OR, MA, NY, etc. could possibly survive there. Heck, I’m going to be homeless when I get there.
Yep. That’s what my Wyoming friends keep telling me. So I guess I will have to stay here in New Jersey...
From: The Washington Times
Date: May 17, 2006
Huckabee ‘serious’ about presidency
(snip)
Mr. Huckabee said he approved of virtually everything in the Monday night speech on immigration by Mr. Bush, including his National Guard and guest-worker initiatives, even though that agreement put Mr. Huckabee at odds, he said, with some fellow conservative Republicans.
“I do believe some of it is driven by racism or nativism,” he said of the opposition within his party to Mr. Bush’s view that illegal aliens should not be deported but rather fined and eventually allowed U.S. citizenship.
“It’s not amnesty to make people pay for breaking the law,” Mr. Huckabee said.
As president, he said, he would have no problem working on common goals with fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton or with other Democrats for that matter.
(snip)
On the environment, he said: “We have done more to abuse than use the planet.” He added that it’s better for Americans “to act as if global warming” is a scientific fact because there is “no downside in conserving our resources.”
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-145938811.html
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