Boortz endorses Huckabee
What little respect I had for Neal Boortz is completely gone:
Syndicated talk radio host Neal Boortz is backing Mike Huckabee and Bill Richardson in the 2008 presidential race, he told fans Monday at the University of Georgia.The FairTax is not worth putting Mike Huckabee in office. Boortz claims that he has been disappointed with the spending habits of George W. Bush, but he is ever so willing to put a spendthrift into office.Although Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is more conservative than the self-described libertarian Boortz, he said Huckabee is the only candidate who supports replacing income and other taxes with a national sales tax.
Reason magazine summed up what a Huckabee Administration [**shutters**] would be:
The vision of “compassionate conservatism” promised by George W. Bush was actually practiced by Huckabee, with all the flaws that entailed. He’s the GOP candidate who’d probably get along best with a big-spending Democratic Congress.A Huckabee presidency would be a fiscal nightmare. If it came down to Clinton and Huckabee, I really don't know who I'd vote for.
Comments
Wow...Neal is off his rocker.
Posted by: Jace Walden | November 6, 2007 12:58 PM
Jace,
Your comments about the GREAT plan also work in condemnation of the Boortz national sales tax idea.
Also, doesn't Boortz always rip on evangelical conservatives? Huckabee is their guy!
Posted by: Rick | November 6, 2007 01:04 PM
Your comments about the GREAT plan also work in condemnation of the Boortz national sales tax idea.
Then maybe the FairTax isn't the way to go...maybe a national flat tax that ONLY replaces the federal income tax. That at least makes it more far, but it's not really "cutting taxes".
The fact remains though, that the current Federal Income tax is unconstitutional and immoral.
Posted by: Jace Walden | November 6, 2007 01:12 PM
Thought of you Jason when I saw this. I thought about commenting myself and then thought to myself, nah, Jason an handle the skewering.
Posted by: griftdrift | November 6, 2007 01:30 PM
Wow... this FairTax thing has officially become some kind of fringe religious cult. That's the only explanation I can think of.
Posted by: Steve Perkins | November 6, 2007 01:46 PM
Wow... this FairTax thing has officially become some kind of fringe religious cult.
I've thought the same thing too.
I've noticed something else too. Small "l" libertarians, especially the ones who've stuck with the GOP, have pointed out that as the GOP has become the home to more and more social conservatives, the party's taste for limited government has declined.
What I haven't seen is criticism of the tax cut freaks. These people don't care about spending or government regulation as long as the top marginal tax rate is cut from 39.6 percent to 35 percent.
I've found this group, of whom the FairTaxers belong, to be almost as comfortable with big government as the evangelicals and other people primarily concerned with social conservatism. Oh sure, the tax freaks complain about spending as much as the next guy, but if you press them long enough, you'll see they only care about taxes.
That's why it's not surprising to see FairTaxers get behind someone like Huckabee, whose record as governor is about as statist as anybody whose run for the GOP nomination in years. Their only conception of "limited government" is the tax system; they don't see anything else.
Posted by: Doug | November 6, 2007 03:42 PM
As a Fair Taxer, I looked at Huckabee because he supports the Fair Tax. And for the life of me, I can't understand why he does. To me, the Fair Tax is one step (hopefully one of many) in limiting the federal government. Nothing I've seen in Huckabee indicates that he is for limiting government at all, which is why I will not vote for him.
The US is full of single issue voters, be they "tax cut freaks" or other. It makes sense that some Fair Taxers would support Huckabee for that issue alone. I think that's what Boortz has turned into: a single issue voter. He can't see how intrusive the federal government would become under