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An Interview With Governor Mike Huckabee Of Arkansas
by John Hawkins
John Hawkins: I understand that you used to be a Southern Baptist minister. How long ago did you leave the ministry and what prompted you to leave?
Mike Huckabee: I always say that I've really never left the ministry; I'm just kind of dealing with a different kind of congregation these days. But, I was a pastor for a total of 12 years. I was originally in communication work and television and stayed in that even during the time that I was a pastor, but it was a great experience.
My original goal was to go into some form of Christian broadcasting which I did in fact continue, but I think the pastoring experience was not only a wonderfully growing experience for me, it also was what finally pushed me into running for office -- dealing with people from the cradle to the grave and every situation in life -- and realizing that a lot of people that were making public policy decisions really didn't understand the impact of those decisions on the way people lived.
John Hawkins: Let me ask you about another interesting story and probably the one that most people have heard. You lost 105 pounds in 10 months. Tell us what inspired you to do that and how you did it.
Mike Huckabee: Well, the doctor told me that if I didn't, I was going to be taking a dirt nap within 10 years and I really didn't like the sound of that. (I was) diagnosed with Type II Diabetes -- and he described what that would do to me over a period of time -- and it really was a wake-up call. So, I've been able to completely reverse that . I really no longer present any symptoms of diabetes in now 3 years and so it's as if I've never been diabetic -- but it really was a matter of personal health crisis and the fact that I realized, as the title of my book says, that I was digging my grave with a knife and a fork.
John Hawkins: Let's switch gears a little bit - foreign policy. Let's say that the President came to you and said, "Mike, I need your advice. As you know, we believe Iran is building a nuclear bomb. We've attempted to deal with them diplomatically by having the Europeans negotiate with them and by going through the UN. Unfortunately, that hasn't solved the problem and the CIA is telling us that if we don't bomb the Iranians soon, we could risk having Iran develop a nuclear weapon. So basically, we feel that either we bomb Iran militarily, with minimal support from our allies around the world or we stand back and allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. What do you think I should do, Mike?"
Mike Huckabee: Well, first I'd make real sure that we had not been able to secure some interest on the part of allies around the world of the danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon -- and frankly it's far more dangerous for the people in the Middle East and Europe than it is for us. It's more dangerous for China and India than it is for us -- and I think the first thing we should do is not necessarily worry about the UN, because I'm not sure how effective the UN as an organization is or will be -- but I think it's in the best interest of many of those nations in the neighborhood to think very seriously (about) whether they want Iran with that kind of capability.
John Hawkins: Well, let's say we could get a few allies on board or maybe we can't. Do you feel if we came down to a question where we had to choose between bombing and their getting nuclear weapons, which way do you think we should go?
Mike Huckabee: John, I always hesitate to answer a hypothetical because it puts you in an incredible box that later if you had to make that decision, people could say, well, you lied -- and I don't want to do that -- and I'm not in command of enough facts of what kind of weapon, what level of weapon, how they would deliver it.
There are a lot of issues and rather than just say they had a nuclear weapon, is it one that they'd have to throw at us or is it one that they have a missile capability to launch and get our shores? A lot of it would depend on - is this a threat to the U.S. or is it a threat to our allies - and if it's a threat to our shores, then that ups the ante. If it's a threat to our allies, I think we need to say to them, you know, "We're going to survive this attack if they do it -- you won't. Now you tell us you're going to sit back and let it happen."
John Hawkins: Another foreign policy question. There seems to be two schools of thinking that have developed on Iraq. One, that seems to be championed mostly by Democrats...is that we leave Iraq as quickly as practicably possible, regardless of the repercussions on the ground. We set a time line and we stick to it. The other school of thought George Bush has talked about is that we should pull our soldiers out as soon as we can, but it should be based on the conditions on the ground. In other words, as the Iraqi soldiers become more capable of taking over, our soldiers will stand down. Which way do you think we should go? What's your opinion of how we should handle Iraq?
Mike Huckabee: I was there 2 months ago and spent time with our soldiers as well as Iraqis. Based on not only what I had observed from this side of the Atlantic but also from being there, I think the President is right and there are 2 arguments to be made. One is why we shouldn't have gone in the first place, but that decision's too late to debate. We're there.
Now the question is, now that we are there, what should we do in the best interest of the U.S., not only from a standpoint of the necessity of some stable democracy in the Middle East -- but also from the necessity of our credibility being on the line. If we were to go over there, overthrow a tyrannical despot like Saddam Hussein, promise the Iraqi people that we'll help them to transition to a democratic form of government, establish a constitution, hold free elections, and be empowered to secure themselves -- and then leave before we really saw that through and left them vulnerable to a take-over by a force even worse than Saddam Hussein, I'm not sure anybody would ever trust the U.S. again. I'm not sure they should.
So I feel that what we're doing is the right thing and we are making significant transition to the Iraqis. Do I want us to get out of there as quickly as possible? Yes, I just yesterday sent 43 more of my Army soldiers from National Guard troops and personally went over and watched them kiss their families good-bye. I don't want to do that too many more times and I darn sure don't like making phone calls to the families of a soldier that is killed in action. That hasn't been pleasant, but on the other hand, we're there.
I think the important thing is to realize that the establishment of a democracy is sometimes a messy thing and it takes time. Yeah, we been at it 240 years. We're still working on it. It took women 150 years to vote in this country. They got to vote from the get-go over there.
I also look at it as if we had the same mentality of the Democrats after WWII and they'd have said, "Ok we have one year to make it work and we're pulling out," - if they'd have said that in Europe -- the face of the world, and particularly our own nation would be very, very different today. I'm glad that we didn't have that kind of Democrat running things. I think Harry Truman would spin in his grave if he heard the rhetoric from the floor of Congress today knowing what he was dealing with some 60 years ago.
John Hawkins: Switching gears again, do you think we should overturn Roe v. Wade?
Mike Huckabee: It would please me because I think Roe v. Wade is based on a real stretch of Constitutional application -- that somehow there is a greater privacy issue in the abortion concern -- than there is a human life issue -- and that the federal government should be making that decision as opposed to states making that decision.
So, I've never felt that it was a legitimate manner in which to address this and, first of all, it should be left to the states, the 10th Amendment, but secondly, to somehow believe that the taking of an innocent, unborn human life is about privacy and not about that unborn life is ludicrous.
John Hawkins: Let me ask you about the hot issue of the day, illegal immigration. When it comes to illegal immigration, do you think we should allow illegal aliens currently in the country to become citizens or at least give them the opportunity to or the opportunity to stay as guest workers, or do you think they should have to leave the United States?
Mike Huckabee: Well, I'm not as sure that leaving and then coming back is as important as it is to acknowledge that what they've done is illegal, pay a fine, and then get in line behind the people that are going through the process of being here legally. It's important that we have a legal process.
We can't just ignore our laws. We either change them or enforce them for clearly this land is a land that is dependent on more workers than we currently have for many of the jobs that Americans honestly don't want. So there is, I think, a reality that we shouldn't just sort of look the other way. I don't believe in amnesty. That's not a good idea, but creating a pathway where people can have a form of restitution to make things right, to understand that laws have to be obeyed or some consequences have to be applied. That makes more sense than trying to deport 12 million people or build a 700 million, ehr...700 billion dollar fence (Hawkins Note: Most estimates of the cost of the fence are in the 2-5 billion dollar range), whatever it's going to cost.
John Hawkins: Let me ask you about one bill I heard about - in Arkansas. I understand you opposed a bill that would deny illegal immigrants state benefits. Is that the case and can you tell us a little about that?
Mike Huckabee: I think it's a bill that one of our state senators who really was baiting this issue, got on, and it did something that we don't do any way. We don't give benefits to illegals and it was a bill really to inflame passions, not to solve anything. When I asked him could he name me one person anywhere that was getting a welfare check, food stamps, or getting benefits who was illegal, he could not do it.
I asked him did he know of anyone who could give me the name of anyone and I told him if he could, then he needed to be reporting it -- because it was already against the law in our state -- and could he tell me what this bill would do that our current laws didn't already do -- and he couldn't tell me. The point was that this was not to fix something that was wrong, this was to get attention, which it did for him. It created an enormous amount of rally for people who wanted to be angry at somebody, but he couldn't produce any evidence whatsoever because we don't allow benefits to be given...
John Hawkins: Let me ask: if an illegal alien couple has a child in Arkansas and he becomes a citizen, can they get benefits that way?
Mike Huckabee: They would be able -- the child would.
John Hawkins: Right, but, ok...
Mike Huckabee: But, the child is a citizen. That child is not illegal.
John Hawkins: Right.
Mike Huckabee: Also, I believe that you don't punish a child because the parents did something wrong. To me, that's ---- our justice system has never been based on punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty and you certainly don't punish an underage child because of something the parents did. If you did, you'd be locking up a lot of kids because the parents are bums.
John Hawkins: I got you. What about the Federal Marriage Amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman - the Constitutional Amendment - what do you think about it? Is that something you support? Oppose?
Mike Huckabee: I support it. I would support it, regretting that we would have to bring it up, because marriage has always meant but one thing. In Arkansas I strongly supported and helped lead an effort to pass a Constitutional Amendment that does define marriage that way, which passed by some 70% of the vote. I think it's important that, again, it's not that we're prohibiting anyone -- but we are simply defining what has always been a clear but unmistakable definition of what marriage means. Marriage can't mean everything or then it means nothing.
John Hawkins: Right. Your bio says that you "led efforts to establish a Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights." Tell us a little bit about that.
Mike Huckabee: We did pass the Property Taxpayers' Bill of Rights that, first of all, limits the amount of increase that a person can have in his property tax. It can't go up more than 5% any year, it can't go up by more than 10% in a 3-year period.
We were seeing situations where assessments would go long periods of time without being done and then there would be this huge sticker shock. Somebody would get a new assessment that hadn't been done in 15 years and it was just a huge increase -- so that's not fair.
So if the assessing process is simply out of date, you don't punish the taxpayer. We also gave the taxpayers greater listing of how they could protest tax assessment increase and made it simpler, made it fairer, and made it transparent. So we listed a whole host of things that really empowered the taxpayer to make sure that a person didn't just arbitrarily get their taxes raised and also put a cap on how much they could be raised at any one given time and over a period of time.
John Hawkins: Now, a related question on taxes… According to your bio, you "pushed through the Arkansas Legislature the first major, broad-based tax cuts in state history." On the other hand, let me ask you about this. The Club for Growth blog noted several tax raises that you had during your time in and they said, "Huckabee signed a 3-cent gas tax increase in 1999. He called for a state sales tax hike in 2002. He signed a 25-cent cigarette tax hike in 2003. He allowed a major tax hike package to pass in 2004." So, where do you stand on taxes on the national level? Are there any taxes you think need to be cut? Any you think need to be raised? What do you think about that?
Mike Huckabee: Well, The Club for Growth, in a typical fashion, acts more like a talk show host than they do a serious seeker of facts and they have a lot of nice tools that they use for their own fund raising mechanism to show that they're champions of conservatism, but I find their message sometimes appalling. For example, one of the taxes they claimed that I had supported, I -- in fact -- didn't sign. I don't have much of a veto power in Arkansas.
John Hawkins: So that would be the 2004 package?
Mike Huckabee: Right, and that was the one where I felt like the legislature...we were under a court order to increase funding for education - and, you know, I would have been willing to see us put more money - but not if we didn't have efficiency and accountability in how the money was spent. Well, the legislature basically put money, but they didn't put a level of efficiency - and I refused to sign it - and what happens is, in Arkansas that will become law after 5 days without my signature.
The reason I didn't veto the bill is because there already were far more than enough votes to override the veto because a simple majority overrides any veto. Even if the bill required 75 votes to pass, 51 votes would actually override the veto. There's no point. I've only vetoed a few pieces of legislation in 10 years, most of which were because of they were unconstitutional and I had a clear reason to withhold them.
Interestingly with an overwhelming Democrat legislature. I've vetoed bills that were unconstitutional and they overrode the veto. I vetoed a couple of bills in 1997 because not only did I think they were unconstitutional, but I said they were a complete fraud of taxpayer money. They went ahead and overrode the vetoes and the net result was that within 2 years there were about 4 state senators either indicted and/or convicted and jailed as a result of that legislation. But, they still overrode the vetoes in spite of that.
So there was another tax increase I think that they tried to hit me up for; it was a surcharge on income tax. I did not support it and I did not sign it. It was later repealed, which I did sign the repeal. The gas tax was put to a vote of the people because it was for a road program - to do a bonded road program. We had some of the worst roads in the nation. The people voted on it by an 80% margin. I make no apology for fixing our roads because during our road program, again, the people overwhelmingly supported that and they had a chance to vote on it and the result was we created 40,000 jobs at a time when the nation was in recession and we re-built our highway system and it was very, very helpful to us and to our economy.
John Hawkins: That's a...good explanation of what happened in Arkansas. What about the national level? Are there any taxes you think should be cut or raised off the top of your head?
Mike Huckabee: Well, I think that the federal tax is certainly high enough, if not too high, and part of the problem I have with the federal tax is that the real issues are that Congress continues to spend out of control, but what they also want to do, is they want to balance the budget off the backs of the states. Governors have to balance their budget every day.
I mean, I can't go home at night having borrowed money or printed money or making speeches about how much I'm going to give to some effort if I can't make the books balance. I believe that's one thing that sets governors apart from folks in Washington. We do have to not only make things work, but we have to do it within a budget and so I don't think the problem in Congress are that our taxes are too (high); I think it's that our spending is out of control.
There are some things that ought to be happening, that would actually help us cut taxes. That would reduce the deficit. America spends 16% of its GDP on health care costs. No other nation on earth spends more than 10%. If we were able to move America to a healthier and more productive lifestyle, the difference between 10% and 16% of GDP is 700 billion dollars a year.
The long term is that if we keep the trend we're going -- where we're essentially engaging in the destructive behaviors that drive chronic disease -- it's almost going to force more money to be spent on things like Medicaid, Medicare, and health care, period. The option is we create an incentive-based program and we upgrade the technology so that we actually start improving the health of our citizens which means they live a lot longer and better, but they live less expensively.
That's a huge process to undertake, but I'm telling you it's the one thing that could make American companies competitive. Because what's driving their non-competitiveness is their health care costs - good example, GM spends $1,500 per car in health care for their employees; Toyota spends $110 per car in their health care for employees. That's why Toyota has become the Number One automaker in the world; GM is struggling to stay afloat. What I would support is a -- I think Steve Forbes had it right on the flat tax. A flat tax simplifies the tax system. It makes it flatter, fairer, and also finite. Everybody walks in knowing what the ultimate cost of their taxes is, but it's going to be proportionate to their income and it's going to be fair across the board.
John Hawkins: Let me ask you one more question here. If someone came up to you and said, "Mike Huckabee, pick any three pieces of legislation you'd want to see passed nationally, and we'll tell you they'll definitely make it through, what three would you pick? Take your time. I understand this is a tough thing to pull off the top of your head.
Mike Huckabee: Yes, it's one thing to think about it at the state level which is the water I've swam in for all these years versus suddenly throwing me into the nation... I think, you know -- the three, ..again, this is sort of off the cuff -- and tomorrow I might have a different answer, but one of them would be that we would create more incentives for companies to encourage healthy behavior, not just to provide health care because, again, I think it's the wrong answer. That encourages people to be unhealthy, but that would mean that you'd empower citizens to handle their own health and give them financial incentives for doing a better job of it. It's a combination not just of health savings accounts which are a good thing, but even health savings accounts, you have to have some, you know, some capital to start with, to make it where it's worthwhile. So overhauling that system is one thing.
Secondly, I think I would create a system where people who wanted to further their education could offer volunteer services as young people either in the military like they have with the GI Bill -- or in some other form of volunteerism, because there really is a sense of which a lot of Americans do not appreciate their freedom. They do not really recognize just how good they've got it. This would give them an opportunity to give something back in exchange so that they wouldn't have to go to college and incur a huge level of debt in order to further their education. The reason that education is important is because without higher levels of education than a high school diploma, they're not going to be able to be competitive enough in the marketplace.
A third thing...I think I'd also pass legislation that would insure that the federal government had to live within its budget, a balanced budget amendment and that it could not balance its budget by simply passing costs on to states or local governments.
John Hawkins: That's a good one, a very good one. Well, Mr. Huckabee, that's the interview. I really appreciate your time..
Mike Huckabee: Thank you, John.
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