November 1, 2007

Author and talk show host Hugh Hewitt speaks with Presidential contender Mike Huckabee on immigration, poverty programs and his record on tax cuts.
 
Hugh Hewitt: Joined now by Governor Mike Huckabee, former Governor for more than 10 years, almost 11 years of the State of Arkansas…. Good to have you back.  You are doing quite well, but as a result, you’ve got a target on your back now. Lots of people are throwing bricks at you. Just to be expected?

Mike Huckabee: Well, absolutely. It’s Politics 101, and frankly, it’s a good sign. It’s a form of flattery when you’re under assault. You know, a good hunter never puts the beads on a dead carcass. You only aim at something that’s alive that you want to put on the wall as a trophy…. 

Hewitt: All right, let’s move on to the interview you did with Wolf Blitzer about children in the country illegally, and whether or not they should have equal status with other school kids seeking financial aid and higher ed. What is your view?

Huckabee: First of all, let me make clear, secure the border, no sanctuary cities, and absolutely no amnesty. But when a child has been in the public schools of our state, and has done exceptionally well academically, and has academically and in every other way qualified for what we had in our state, called an academic challenge scholarship, then my proposal was that if those students were willing to apply for and become citizens, we should give them the same scholarships as anybody else, because I’d rather have them as college graduates making a lot more money and being taxpayers, than tax takers, and because I didn’t want to punish the children for the sins of the crimes of the parent.

I think it’s a big difference. You certainly don’t excuse what the parents did, but you don’t punish the child because of what the parents decided to do in breaking the law. 

Hewitt: So Governor Huckabee, if you’ve got someone in the country illegally who’s 18, 19, 20, but was brought here by his or her parents when they were 13, 14, 15, should they be allowed to stay in the United States?

Huckabee: Well, if their parents have to go back, they should go with them, unless they have become citizens themselves. I think that’s the key. The biggest mistake this country made is a government that completely dropped the ball 20 years ago by never securing our borders. And this situation is not going to get fixed. The 12 million will become 50 million in another 20 years if we don’t have a system that makes it at least as difficult to get across the border as it is for me to get on an airplane in my hometown, which currently, it’s easier to get across the international border than it is for me to get on a plane. 

Hewitt: Well, do you think, though, that the states’ governments ought to be actively cooperating in the identification of people who are not in the country legally, whether they’re minors or adults?

Huckabee: Oh, well sure, absolutely. And one of the provisions in the bill that we did propose was that they would have to be in the process of becoming citizens, or they wouldn’t be able to access the scholarships. 

Hewitt: Now as you know, you got hit by [Wall Street Journal writer] John Fund and I want to go over what the Club for Growth accuses you of, especially sales tax increases on gas, smokes, nursing homes, opposing the repeal of sales tax on food and medicine. Are you actually calling the Club for Growth now the Club for Greed?

Huckabee: Yeah, I have, because they’ve been very reckless with the truth as it relates to a record that I have of cutting 94 taxes, including the first ever broad-based tax cut in the history of my state, balancing a budget every year, going from a zero balance to a nearly billion dollar balance that I turned over to the governor that took office this year. My fiscal record is good, and don’t take my word for it, there’s a lot of documentation on my Web site. Or people can contact I think very responsible fiscal conservative Republicans like Asa Hutchinson and people like John Paul Hammerschmidt, who are elected members of Congress, who watched my record as a Republican in the state, going against a strong headwind of the Clinton machine.

People need to remember, nobody knows Hillary Clinton better than me, and nobody’s ever run against her like I have, because every time I was on the ballot in Arkansas, I ran against her political machine. And I beat it not once, twice, three times, but four times. 

Hewitt: Did you, did President Bush do the right thing when he vetoed the [State Children’s Health Insurance Program] SCHIP?

Huckabee: Well, I understand why he did it. I think that in the long run, it’s turned out well. We’ve not gotten at least a compromise on it. The problem was the President should’ve never allowed it to get to the point where the Democrats could say that if you veto the bill, you don’t love children. There was a big gap between the $5 billion and the $35 billion that Congress wanted. And the reality was that we were going to put a lot of kids in SCHIP that shouldn’t be in SCHIP. [The program] was not designed for kids whose parents make $83,000 dollars a year. But the President did not really do a good job of helping the American people to understand what that real issue was. 

Hewitt: If you had been the President, would you have vetoed it?

Huckabee: I wouldn’t have let it get that far. That would have been the difference.  I would have made sure that we took charge of the message better, and framed that issue better. Whoever frames the issue wins the debate, and in this case…

Hewitt: The Democrats in Congress have the majorities. They sent it forward. If that bill landed on your desk as president, would you veto it?

Huckabee: But once again, Hugh, who frames the issue wins the debate. If you’re the president of the United States, you can frame the issue, because you have the bully pulpit. The one thing, the reason Bill Clinton was so effective against a Republican Congress was because there was one of him and there was 535 members of Congress. Their message is divided, the president’s isn’t. So a president has to be able to use the power of his office and to be the Communicator in Chief, and not just the Commander in Chief. It’s one of the most important single roles that a president has. 

Hewitt: Governor, I think the audience has a right to a very clear answer on an easy question. If that SCHIP bill is on your desk, do you sign it or do you veto it?

Huckabee: Hugh, it sounds like an easy question, but I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have allowed that bill to get to my desk in that form. It needed to be vetoed financially, because it was a terrible bill from the standpoint of $35 billion dollars. Politically, it was a very unfortunate thing to have to veto, because it only makes Republicans look like they don’t care about kids. That’s the mistake. The political mistake of getting there was a disaster, and the Republicans have to accept responsibility for that. 

Hewitt: And the last question is, do you support a federal ban on smoking as has been alleged?

Huckabee: No, I don’t. I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn’t smoke in your own home. I don’t care what people do in their home. But in a workplace, in our state, we passed a law which I’m very proud of, and that said that people have a right to have clean air at the workplace.

I did not support a ban just in restaurants and bars because frankly, I think that the problem with that is that you’re punishing the customers. But what you have a right to do is to protect the workers in the same way you do from radon gas and a host of other carcinogens and toxic fumes, which is exactly what tobacco smoke is. 

Hewitt: Well, I understand that from the state side, but I’m talking about the federal lawmakers getting involved in this and imposing on states a uniform standard. Do you … just for the workplace. Do you support federal laws mandating standards for workplace non-smoke environments? 

Huckabee: I personally would on the workplace issue. If there are two or more people, and as long as anyone under the age of 21 worked in that place, there ought to be some protections for them. 

Hewitt: Thank you, Governor Mike Huckabee, always a pleasure. 

Hugh Hewitt is host of the nationally syndicated “Hugh Hewitt Show” and executive editor of Townhall.com. Listen to Hugh’s full interview with Governor Huckabee at Townhall.com. Contact Hugh at hugh@hughhewitt.com.