I actually like a lot of the rhetoric Huckabee employed on economic issues in his last campaign and if this is a preview of his coming campaign I can get on board with that rhetoric. Four quick criticisms though.
1) His 2008 platform was economically regressive
While this rhetoric was nice, he called for a ‘Fair Tax’ or Flat Tax of 10% with revenue raised by a national and highly regressive Goods and Services tax (GST) of around 23%. Such a tax scheme would still defund the government, choke the economy and small business, and essentially be a redistribution of wealth to the upper echelons of society at the expense of the poor. Politifact does a nice job fairly demonstrating how it’s an awful proposal.
People who earn a poverty-level wage are likely to spend all of their wages every year, so they are taxed on 100 percent of their earnings. Rich people, though, might only spend a fraction of their annual income, and are only taxed on that portion. So the wealthy person pays a lower tax rate than the poor person.
2) He Ain’t Getting Money out of Politics
This Axis of Evil or Axis of Influence is real. And his above quotes are very heartening, particularly when a Republican bashes his party for bashing single moms on welfare and one hand washing the other culture. Bailing out ivy league bankers while single moms starve. Etc. Great words. Yet time and time again not only has he supported the Citizens United ruling but he actively works with the group itself to pursue radical anti-UN and anti-abortion campaigns.
3) Huckabee’s Liberal Problem
At the end of the day, I would argue with all his faults outlined above you are correct that rhetorically he is far more in line with the populist mainstream of American economic thought. The grassroots in both parties are far more populist than they want to admit, while the elite neoliberals at the top hold opinions that are actually far out of the American mainstream-particularly regarding bailouts, corporate welfare, and corporate taxation. But even this rhetoric alienates him from the base of the Republican party. They will reject his ‘big government conservatism’ like they did in 2008.
He is too far to the left on economics to be electable in a GOP primary and way too far to the right to be electable in a general election as a nominee. As a fan of William Jennings Bryan it’s heartening to hear attempts to revive his legacy on the right, but he will enjoy about as much electoral success as the Great Commoner.
Huckabee’s Economic Populism, jconway’s thoughts
Please share widely!
jconway says
Solid moderating job and one where we can have a debate about substance. At the end of the day I’d rather have two economically progressive parties with one social conservative the other social liberal than have the inverse which has been our status quo for far too long. I do think most of his economic progressive rhetoric is ‘malarkey’ as Joe Biden would say.
joeltpatterson says
of the primaries to become the nominee.
I recall seeing him on one of the 2008 debates where an opponent accused him of “raising taxes,” and his defense was, “raising taxes isn’t bad when they pay for improving roads and schools.” The other Republicans and even the moderator seemed to think he was crazy-talkin’.
kbusch says
TARP was better than no TARP.
The populism of an informed and engaged citizenry would have given us a better TARP. The populism of our existing citizenry would have given us no TARP at all — and a gigantic hole in our economy with sustained double digit unemployment.
Populism tends to reduce everything to innocent vs undeserving, reward and punishment, good and evil. Useful maybe for winning elections but just terrible for good policy.
jconway says
I get where you are coming from, a reluctance to bail out anything would’ve made the financial crisis worse and would’ve led to the end of the Big 3 in Detroit, etc. BUT i do think the idea that our existing citizenry was too ignorant of economics and that is where the rage is coming from feeds into the elite consensus politics that is anti-populist and relatively anti-democratic. And that elite is dominant in both parties. The difference is, the far right Tea Party owns the House and is toppling it’s establishment while our establishment ignores Occupy and pretended it didn’t exist. We need some left wing populism to take back the country, and Elizabeth Warren is exactly right to put the coals to the fire of the banks and to call for expanding Social Security rather than buying into the myths of an entitlement crisis. I think that is what you are saying by ‘the right kind’ of populism of an informed and engaged citizenry-but those of us who were enraged by TARP on the left were exactly that already.
SomervilleTom says
I enthusiastically agree with your last paragraph when “populism” is interpreted to mean the intentionally ignorant refusal to even think that so often has characterized historical “populist” movements.
In my view, Elizabeth Warren and Occupy articulate something different. I hesitate to call it “populism”, because it is almost precisely opposite the stance normally called “populist”. What we got in TARP was more Kibuki Theater than actual policy.
An informed and engaged citizenry would have recognized the Great Recession as the tipping point of a decades-old class war waged by the 1% against the rest of us, and would have demanded that the extreme wealth concentration that created the Great Recession be addressed by the government’s response. I hesitate to call that demand “populist”.
I find it enormously ironic that we have this discussion as the federal long-term unemployment insurance program expires. It is positively obscene that those benefits were not extended, and it is shameful that our media and public discussion does not clearly point the finger at the GOP obstructionism that caused it.
There is no single stimulus more required for today’s struggling economy than extended unemployment benefits. Yet the party who STILL holds the mantle of “good for the economy” proudly continues to block that stimulus.
I don’t know about “populism”, but I do know that it is time for some of those harsh polarizing words — “ignorant”, “incompetent”, “dishonest” come to mind — to be applied to today’s GOP and its supporters.
Christopher says
…but as Governor I thought that in many ways he really was a Christian rather than just playing one on TV.