Presidential Endorsement

I try to avoid politics as much as possible, when it comes to my personal finance blogs. However, there are some times when the two collide head on. Today's post is one of those times. Today, I am making my political endorsement for the next President.

You may be wondering, how that has anything to with personal finance. My answer is everything. The person we elect President, or any public office, will have a voice in our economy. We will give them power to raise or lower our taxes. The decisions they make could have a dramatic effect, one way or the other, on our personal finances.

Ever since Sam Brownback's early withdrawal from the Presidential campaign, I have been in a quandry as to who to vote for. If you have read my political/opinion blog (KevinsView.com) you know it has been between Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. As a personal finance blogger (DebtFree4ever.NET), I have received emails from other personal finance bloggers, who was endorsing Ron Paul.

I have to admit, I toyed with the idea. I liked some of his libertarian stances, especially those on the war and the abolishment of the IRS. At the same time, those were the views that scared me the most about him. Not to mention that he has had no administrative experience. Yes, he has more the 30 years combined in Congress, but that is far from administrative experience. He has virtually no foreign policy experience. Not to mention that financial expert, Bob Brinker, told a caller on his radio program, the other day that Paul knew the least (of all the candidates) about the economy.

So, who do I like? Who am I going to endorse?

I like the candidate who balanced his states budget 5 times, eliminated the capital gains tax for the sale of a home and indexed his states tax to inflation to keep people from being forced into higher tax brackets. Not to mention when he left the Governor's office, his state had a surplus of more then $800 million. That candidate is Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee has the best chance of winning, plus he is one of the most all around fiscal (as can be seen in the previous paragraph) conservatives running this year. He was Governor of Arkansas for 10 ½ years. One of the biggest changes he brought about in Arkansas was the quality of education. During his time as Governor, he took Arkansas that was ranked 45th in the nation to number 8 in the nation.

Under Huckabee’s direction, Arkansas has been recognized as having created one of the nation’s best school accountability programs. Huckabee pushed through reforms in Arkansas that have significantly increased the number of charter schools and established new approaches to workforce education.

Huckabee is recognized as a national leader, having been honored by several renowned publications and organizations for his numerous accomplishments. Governing Magazine named him as one of its ‘Public Officials of the Year’ for 2005, Time Magazine honored him as one of the five best governors in America, and later in the same year, Huckabee received the American Association of Retired Person’s Impact Award. In 2007, he was presented with the Music for Life Award by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) for his commitment to music education.

Of course I wouldn't be a personal finance blogger, if I didn't take a closer look at the economic issues.

Huckabee is a proponent of the The Fair Tax. The Fair Tax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including:

1. A progressive national retail sales tax,
2. A prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.
3. Dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality.
4. Repeal of the 16th Amendment through companion legislation.

It is the belief of Huckabee (and mine) that our massive deficit is not due to Americans' being under-taxed, but to the government's over-spending. In fact, he favors the line-item veto, so that he can veto many of the pork and spending projects buried within many of our nations legitimate bills.

I'd like you to join me at the best "Going Out of Business" sale I can imagine - one held by the Internal Revenue Service. Am I running for president to shut down the federal government? Not exactly. But I am running to completely eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And I do mean all - personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment. All our hours filling out forms, all our payments for help with those forms, all our shopping bags filled with disorganized receipts, all our headaches and heartburn from tax stress will vanish. Instead we will have the FairTax, a simple tax based on wealth. When the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness.

As Governor of Arkansas, he cut taxes and fees almost 100 times, saving the taxpayers, of his state, almost $380 million. He left a surplus of nearly $850 million, which he urged should go back to the people.


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