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A local Arkansas media writer has penned a great rebuttal to John Fund’s piece in the Opinion Journal today about Huckabee. It can be found here.
His best point is that Mr. Fund neglected to point out that, while road taxes and state spending did go up, they were the result of a statewide referendum and a judicial order, respectively. Neither of those, by the way, is under the authority of the Governor’s office.
(By the way, I’m sure you’ve heard, but Huckabee moved into 4th place both nationally & in New Hampshire according to Scott Rasmussen, leading Romney by a point nationally and Thompson by 3 points in New Hampshire. You’ve probably heard this already, so I won’t mention it!)
UPDATE
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Mr. Lowry:
The article cited by your e-mailer accuses John Fund of being disingenuous because the gas tax was voted in by referendum. That position is the disingenuous one. The gas tax was approved by referendum, but Gov, Huckabee was very vocal in support of the referendum and in encouraging voters to approve it. That is why Fund refers to Huckabee’s “efforts to raise taxes.” If you ask former Rep. Randy Minton I think you will find that he objected to being asked by Huckabee to publicly support the referendum.
You can’t strongly call for the public to vote for a tax increase and then later say, “well, it’s not MY fault that they listened to me.” Now, THAT is disingenuous!