As the Republican National Convention approaches (I fly out in one week – to provide FR readers with live updated from the ground throughout the big event), I am starting to get excited about a week in Minneapolis with thousands of fellow Republicans, unifying around our nominee, and celebrating a political party, that for over a century and a half has stood for freedom, limited government, and family values. I’m excited to be a member of the California delegation!
As a strong conservative, I have to admit that I was more than a little bummed earlier in the week when I received a press release from the outstanding free-market group, The Club for Growth, in which they were expressing their disappointment that a whole host of real taxfighting leaders nationally for the GOP
I took the opportunity to go to the GOP Convention Website and look up the list of announced speakers – see the link below.
As someone who spends a lot of time looking at the record of politicians, especially Republicans, I noted that in contrast to the absent fiscal hawks above, we have a significant number of speakers who have either supported or voted for tax increases, or supported significant fee increases that I consider a tax (such as Governor Romney’s use of fees to balance the state budget in Massachusetts).
To be more specific, I took a few minutes to link up some of the speakers with some egregious tax or fee hikes…
You have ex-Democrat-turned-Indie Senator Joe Lieberman (voted for the Clinton tax hike, and against the Bush tax cuts), our own California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (who tried to raise business taxes last year, and is currently advocating an increase in the state sales tax), Governor Tom Ridge (who fought for a gas tax hike in Pennsylvania), Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (who endorsed a sales tax hike), Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle (she actually withdrew a veto of a tax hike), Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (who authored, I kid you not, a windfall profits tax), former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (he raised several taxes), Minnisota Senator Norm Coleman (SCHIP, need I say more?), Governor Mitt Romney (I mentioned his support of fees to balance the books in MA), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (in Congress, he voted for a tax-hiking farm bill), Minnisota Governor Tim Pawlenty (raised cigarette taxes and all of this), and even former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who overall actually has an impressive record on taxes, but he isn’t 100%).
Now by no means am I saying that the politicians I just mentioned are bad people, or aren’t on balance great Republicans. In fact, many of them, such as Romney and Giuliani, have tax fighting credentials that are pretty credible. But I certainly think we should have a strong presence from those with a 100% record on opposing taxes and fees, like those highlighted by the Club for Growth.
On a closing note, I will be very interested to hear the remarks of former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who are both talked about as future candidates for statewide office in California. While I am sure these ladies will be talking about John McCain – since our nominee is a “maverick” with many views that departs from the GOP norm, this will give them a chance to choose the ones to emphasize, thus giving us a read on the issues important to them…
CONVENTION SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED SO FAR… (Release)
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