« Dick Armey
April 14, 2008
An Armey of One
Just last week we were fondly reminiscing about the battle that raged for several weeks back in 2006 between Dick Armey and James Dobson that, in many ways, embodied the tensions that existed, and continue to exist, between the economic and social conservative wings of the Republican base.
While that particular clash eventually subsided, the underlying issues did not go away and they seem to have resurfaced in recent weeks, again thanks to Armey's seemingly unprovoked attack on the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins over the latter's suggestion that John McCain ought to announce that he will appoint a "family czar" in order to appease the so-called "Values Voters" FRC and the like claim to represent.
Not surprisingly, Armey thinks the idea is idiotic and is not shy about saying so:
Think about that for a moment: A federal bureaucrat to oversee families. I'm sure Perkins would find a way to claim he's just there to give America's families a helping hand, that he's promoting our country's precious faith and values. But as Ronald Reagan said, the most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the government. I'm here to help." If there's anything our families don't need, it is Washington mucking around in their lives. Could anyone imagine a less conservative idea?
…
There are all sorts of problems with Perkins' notion, but the biggest one right now is that no one even knows for sure what a family czar would actually do. Every time Perkins has brought it up, he's brushed quickly over the topic, as if he doesn't want to discuss what it means. That's probably because it is a political stunt and not a serious policy idea.
Armey goes on to basically say that Perkins and his allies are power hungry and that he’s not even sure that Perkins ought to be claiming to be a conservative and cites Perkins’ support of Mike Huckabee as evidence:
[Perkins threw] his support behind Mike Huckabee, a candidate whose conservative credentials were anything but solid. By supporting a politician who governed in large part by taxing, regulating, and moralizing, he made his own declarations of conservatism subject to doubt.
It is not everyday that we come to the defense of Tony Perkins but in this case, it is simply untrue that Perkins ever supported Huckabee. In fact, Perkins’ repeatedly pledged neutrality on the GOP primary race, though there was plenty of speculation that he preferred Mitt Romney, and his failure to back Huckabee was a constant source of irritation to the Huckabee campaign.
For his part, Perkins himself doesn’t seem particularly fazed by Armey’s attack, dismissing him as “grumpy” and saying that Armey’s “disregard for the importance of strong families is shocking.”
It is safe to say that the relationship between Armey and the Religious Right has undergone something of a transformation since he left office. His relationship with the FRC seems especially strained and it is difficult to imagine that they’ll ever be able to get back to the good old days when Armey “met with us every single week. His staff is available to us when we go there, so it has been a close relationship. Over the years he has been the defender of the family."Posted by Kyle at 4:24 PM | Permalink
February 7, 2008
The Earmarks Candidate
In his last State of the Union speech, when President Bush promised to make his top budget priority the trimming of earmarked special projects, it may have seemed like a gimmick; after all, there was no veto threat when his own party had control of Congress and special projects ballooned. But at CPAC this afternoon, the earmarks obsession took center stage, and provided an aimless crowd of activists with a clear path to the only candidate they seem to have left.
It began with Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the right-wing Republican Study Committee in the House, and continued through a panel on the GOP being “lost”: Rep. Jeff Flake, Rep. Thad McCotter, Sen. Tom Coburn, and Sen. Jim DeMint all endeavored to explain that, although earmarks only make up about one percent of the budget, they are a threat “even greater” than that of terrorism, in the words of Coburn. And so they launched, parallel with the war on terror, a “war on pork—the gateway drug,” Coburn said, “to the spending addiction” that in turn will be “bankrupting” the country. The battle against earmarks, as former House Speaker Dick Armey put it, is a method of “leading the Republican Party back to its way.”
But in the short term, it was method of leading the CPAC crowd to the GOP candidate. DeMint, as he lectured on earmarks, complained that Republican voters “missed an opportunity of a lifetime” by not rallying around Romney, but he looked through his “tears [!] and disappointment” to a need to oppose Democrats in the general election. Armey groused about McCain’s one-time position on high-end tax cuts, but complimented him on the issue of earmarks, urging activists to “shape” their inevitable nominee—to extract promises. Surprise speaker George Allen—two years ago, speaking as CPAC’s hope for 2008—lauded McCain’s “character” and promised leadership in the war, in appointing judges, and in vetoing earmarks. And Coburn offered his grudging support, saying McCain would have the “courage” to face down Congress (except on immigration, he added quickly). McCain, he said, would appoint “strict constructionist judges” like Bork, Roberts, Alito, and Janice Rogers Brown, and yes, would take on those earmarks.
After all that, it was an anticlimax to hear McCain pledge that he “will not sign a bill with any earmarks in it.” But the rest of the candidate’s speech consisted of his effort to make clear to the assembled activists that he himself would emerge from CPAC larded with right-wing policy earmarks. Of course there was his about-face on comprehensive immigration reform and his revelation that he now supports making the “Bush tax cuts” permanent. But more broadly, he promised to fight for “our principles”: from protecting the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of “the unborn” to appointing judges like Roberts and Alito.
Ignoring Laura Igraham’s dig earlier in the afternoon, McCain told CPAC he had “come to public office as a foot soldier” in their movement, and assured them he remains one today.
Posted by Ezra at 6:46 PM | Permalink
January 8, 2008
Huckabee's Populist Image Belies Bizarre Economic Plan
Mike Huckabee’s first-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucus was a victory for the Religious Right, after the combined efforts of a number of lesser-known right-wing figures eager to nominate one of their own. But while James Dobson and Richard Land issued cautious statements endorsing the victory if not the candidate, other national religious-right activists remained aloof, maintaining that Huckabee jeopardizes the vaunted right-wing coalition by alienating some of its partners, especially allies on the economic Right.
“I'm still skeptical that Mike Huckabee is the right man to speak for them because of his views on economics and foreign policy,” said Gary Bauer. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said Huckabee supporters “overlooked the fact he was not attractive to other members of the conservative coalition, and they said they don't care about us, and we don't care about them."
Indeed, these prominent religious-right activists are echoing people like Patrick Toomey of the Club for Growth, who called Huckabee the “John Edwards of the Republican Party,” FreedomWorks' Dick Armey ("Huckabee undermines the GOP's longstanding unity between its traditional and economic wings"), or American Enterprise Institute Vice President Harry Olsen. Toomey’s Club has done the most to convince Republicans of Huckabee’s alleged tax-hiking heresy, running anti-Huckabee ads heavily in Iowa since the summer.
Huckabee himself has played up this reputation as a populist, deriding the “Club for Greed” and talking about “the growing angst in the middle class.”
While many pundits seem to have accepted this presentation, it’s important to separate style from substance: When it comes to economic policy, Huckabee has arguably been running to the right of any of his major opponents.
Key to jumpstarting Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, along with conservative homeschoolers, was his early embrace of a little-known right-wing group called FairTax.org, which proposes replacing all income taxes with a 23 percent national sales tax. FairTax sent at least 20 buses full of people to the Ames straw poll in August, where Huckabee finished a surprising second-place, and the group almost went broke in the fall working the campaign.
Huckabee sells the plan with a populist flair, promising to abolish the IRS and put in place a “progressive” system that would be less for everybody while rewarding “hard work and thrift.” However, the substance doesn't quite match the rhetoric.
Economists and observers on the right and left have mocked the FairTax plan as “politically unrealistic and mathematically impossible.” The 23 percent number, for example, seems to be an obvious ruse to disguise what is in fact a 30 percent tax. (Here’s how that works: adding a $30 tax to a $100 purchase is what anyone would call a 30 percent tax – but the “FairTax” folks say that $30 is only 23 percent of the new total cost of $130.)
Even that number is not sufficient to meet current government spending, which would also be taxed under the plan: Supporters include the tax government agencies would themselves pay when computing revenue but not when calculating spending. Other estimates put the required sales tax rate to meet current spending at above 50 percent.
But beyond the legerdemain and “fantasy” numbers put out by FairTax, the plan for a national sales tax—which would ignore corporate income and capital gains as well as wages—is most vulnerable to criticism that it hits the poor and middle class hardest. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who worked in the Reagan administration, wrote that under the FairTax plan, “there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.” As Money magazine explained:
Let's say a hedge fund manager has a good year and earns $1 billion. If he can somehow manage to scrape by spending, say, $100 million, the other $900 million is tax free. He'll have paid about 2% of his income in taxes that year.
Such a scheme is far more regressive than the current income tax, and no other candidate has proposed anything so radical. Nevertheless, Huckabee continues to employ the FairTax plan as part of his “populist” image, which pundits and his right-wing opponents alike—not to mention religious-right leaders—have bought into.
Posted by Ezra at 1:55 PM | Permalink
November 6, 2007
Armey Attacks Dobson Again
Last year, Dick Armey and James Dobson had a relatively high-profile tiff over their respective places within the Republican Party ... one that is apparently on-going, with Armey now telling Republican candidates they will "probably hurt [themselves] electorally by making Jim Dobson happy."
Posted by Kyle at 2:03 PM | Permalink
July 16, 2007
Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee to Speak at Right-Wing State Legislators Conference
Also appearing at ALEC next week: Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Miss America.
Posted by Ezra at 3:36 PM | Permalink
Right-Wing Conference Planned as 'Left Coast' CPAC
Citizen Outreach and Americans for Tax Reform plan Conservative Leadership Conference for October in Nevada. Gingrich, Thompson, Tancredo, Giuliani, McCain, Romney invited.
Posted by Ezra at 11:30 AM | Permalink
February 9, 2007
2008: Eagle Forum Publishes Its Far-Right Menu
Wants candidates to strip federal courts, establish fetal rights, more. So far, Schlafly picks “none of the above.”
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
February 6, 2007
Dick Armey Blasts His Party
Says of Tom DeLay: “I don't believe he's a good person and I don't believe he is a person who should have been in public office”
Posted by Kyle at 3:37 PM | Permalink
November 22, 2006
FRC's Donovan Joins Armey-Dobson Fray
Armey’s criticism of bullheaded focus on wedge issues means Armey has changed his values, writes Donovan. More here, here, here, and here.
Posted by Ezra at 2:12 PM | Permalink
November 9, 2006
Armey: Wedge Issues Failed GOP
“You can't build a winning constituency based on anger” over gay marriage, immigration, writes former House speaker. Viguerie: GOP leaders should “get out of the way.”
Posted by Ezra at 6:09 PM | Permalink
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