Ernie Dumas - Huckabee Response

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December 02, 2007

Ernie Dumas, an editor for the liberal tabloid The Arkansas Times, attempts to compare the tax increases under Bill Clinton with those of Governor Mike Huckabee. To make the comparison, Dumas simply counts the number of increases rather than examining the impact of these fiscal changes. However, the assessment would have been easier had Dumas simply asked whether Arkansans were better off under Clinton or under Governor Huckabee.

Clearly, if you were an owner of an out-of-state corporation you would have been pleased with the corporate welfare offered by Clinton. Dumas notes that, "If you counted all the tax benefits extended to corporations under the incentives enacted by the legislature under Clinton" and they were part of his programs, especially in 1983, 1985 and 1989; the tax cuts would dwarf those under Huckabee. While this is true, Dumas fails to point out is that these "incentives" nearly bankrupted the state.

As The New York Times noted in 1992, Clinton merely shifted the tax burden from corporation and the wealthy to the poor and middle class:

State data show that business tax preferences, especially sales tax exemptions, cost the state at least $400 million a year -- almost 20 percent of the state's total revenue. As an apparent result of that and some other factors, in the last decade Arkansas has had to rely increasingly on sales taxes to balance its budget.

The state's average tax rate is the 42d lowest in the nation. But Citizens for Tax Justice, a public interest group in Washington, says those taxes hit poor families harder than wealthy families by a ratio of 1.7 to 1. - (April 2, 1992)

In contrast, Governor Huckabee took measures to aid families that Clinton refused make during his tenure. Some of the major accomplishments include:


Established a Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights
Limited the increase in property taxes to 10% a year for individuals and 5% per taxing unit
Eliminated the income tax for families below the poverty line.
Increased the standard deductions.
Eliminated the marriage penalty.
Eliminated bracket creep by indexing the income taxes to inflation, thereby preventing taxpayers from moving into a higher bracket when their paychecks increase due to inflations.
Doubled the child-care tax credit.
Eliminated capital gains tax on the sale of a home.
After his first four years in office President Ronald Reagan asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" The people of Arkansas could ask themselves a similar question: Where they better off after the decade under Clinton or the 10 and half years under Gov. Huckabee?

Recipients of corporate handouts, especially those who didn.t live in the state, probably preferred Clinton. But the poor and middle class citizens of Arkansas who drive on improved roads, send their kids to better schools, and work in one of the 100,000 new jobs created during Huckabee's tenure know which Governor they'd prefer.