Tax Hike Mike? Not the Biggest Hiker on the Trail....

I’ve done some research on the various candidate sites, Wikipedia, CFG and so forth and I have to say, I’m not comfortable with Romney at all.

I could go into his recent policy changes on key issues of interest to social conservatives, or the image retooling that seems to occur between states or the fact that he has the crass notion that he can simply buy the White House with chump change left over from some leveraged buyout. We've heard all those arguments before, and as I've observed the campaign, they're valid concerns. Then there's the sleaze factor in the way he has bought off high powered organizations at great expense (more than 585,000 that can be accounted for so far) to trash the other candidates and you may have all the reason in the world to oppose a candidate. However, this is politics and merely being a phoney with deep pockets and no conscience doesn't necessarily make a guy stand out.

The conservative media has been critical of another candidate, Mike Huckabee, for tax increases he made as Governor of Arkansas that were not completely offset by his tax cuts, leaving a net $500 million extracted from the taxpayers’ pockets. The tax charge is what it is — Governors, especially those who preside over Democratic states, are likely to raise taxes. Huckabee and Romney were both governors of heavily Democratic states and they both raised taxes.

The “Rest of the Story” is that using the same figures from CFG, on a “per year in office” basis, Romney’s tax increases were actually 70% higher than Huckabee’s. Romney's "higher" tax bite may be even higher; when Huckabee left office, he also left an $800 million surplus which could be used to offset the tax increases. It doesn’t take a brilliant economist to catch such inconsistencies in any campaign, but in a campaign that is all about taxes and the economy, one has to wonder why Mitt’s handlers didn’t at least break out a pocket calculator before writing his attack ads.


How it all works out:

Mike Huckabee is charged with increasing taxes by a net of $500 million over 10 1/2 years. That is an average of $47,619,048 per year.

By contrast, Romney's net $325 million over four years comes to $81,250,000. This also does not take into account any surplus he may have left.


Here's the Apples-to-Apples:

"Tax Hike Mike" -- $47.62 Million
"True Conservative Mitt" -- $81.25 Million

So the true conservative raised taxes 70% more per year in less than half the time in office than the ultra-liberal tax hiking Huck.

Even when considering the difference per capita, the amount Arkansans paid over what Masachussetts citizens paid was $2.00 per year! That’s less than the tax increase Arkansas voters approved — which was factored into the “Huckabee” tax increases.

Here's the real shocker. Romney only served four years in office. Technically less, since he started running for president during his tenure as governor. Remember the charge that Huckabee's net tax increases were about $500 million? at $81.25 million a year, Romney's tax bite could have been as much as $853.13 million if he had been able to get re-elected and spend 10 1/2 years in office. That's $353 million he saved the people of Masachussetts by quiting his job early to run for president -- proof that he is indeed a fiscal conservative.

So in addition to the sleaze factor, his ideological viscosity, his cynical drive to do a "Leveraged Buyout" of the White House and all the other reasons his opponents give for opposing him, Mitt Romney's opponents can now add, "he's a tax and spend liberal who raised taxes even more than Mike Huckabee!" to their mantra.

Of course, before I hit the "Send" button, the establishment media will have Mitt's latest talking points up debunking this "myth".