In a full page Boston Globe advertisement in 1996, Romney attacked Steve Forbes’ flat tax proposal as being unfair and a “tax cut for fat cats!”
In the ad, he took an entirely populist theme saying among other things that the Forbes flat tax will drop taxes on the super-rich while stiffing the middle class.
The ad said, “0% Forbes tax on Kennedy’s, Rockefellers, and Forbes down and gone,” and on the other side said, “Forbes tax on you up and up!”
The Club for Growth noted Romney’s opposition to the flat tax in it’s white paper:
His strident opposition to the flat tax is most curious and difficult to explain since Romney wasn’t a political candidate at the time. In 1996, he ran a series of newspaper ads in Boston, New Hampshire, and Iowa denouncing the 17% flat tax proposed by then presidential candidate Steve Forbes as a “tax cut for fat cats.” In 2007, Romney continued to oppose the flat tax with harsh language, calling the tax “unfair.”
That’s Romney’s actual view on tax reform. Whatever he says during an election campaign cannot be believed, because the man will say anything to get elected. Don’t believe me? Watch the videos below.
This short video shows a few of Romney’s biggest flip flops.
Note: I don’t support John Huntsman, but that’s a good look at Romney’s flip-flops.
Another one on global warming:
Another one on health care:
And another one on public sector unions:
Why is this man getting 20% of the vote in the Republican primary? He is not a serious candidate. Stop judging on appearances and make a right judgment.
White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare “right-wing social engineering,” injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party’s efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate.
In the same interview on Sunday, Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, complicating a Republican line of attack on President Barack Obama’s health law.
The former House speaker’s decision to stick with his previous support for an individual mandate comes days after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended the health revamp he championed as governor, which includes a mandate.
The moves suggest the Republican primary contest, which will include both men, could feature a robust debate on health care, with GOP candidates challenging the Democratic law while defending their own variations.
Newt Gingrich’s appearance on “Meet the Press” today could leave some wondering which party’s nomination he is running for. The former speaker had some harsh words for Paul Ryan’s (and by extension, nearly every House Republican’s) plan to reform Medicare, calling it “radical.”
“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said when asked about Ryan’s plan to transition to a “premium support” model for Medicare. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”
As far as an alternative, Gingrich trotted out the same appeal employed by Obama/Reid/Pelosi — for a “national conversation” on how to “improve” Medicare, and promised to eliminate ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ etc.
For Ms. Clinton, standing side by side with her husband’s onetime nemesis gives her the chance to burnish her credentials among the moderates she has been courting during her time in the Senate.
But in comments this week, she portrayed the rapprochement as one born of shared policy interests, not calculated politics.
“I know it’s a bit of an odd-fellow, or odd-woman, mix,” she said. “But the speaker and I have been talking about health care and national security now for several years, and I find that he and I have a lot in common in the way we see the problem.”
For his part, Mr. Gingrich, who helped lead the impeachment fight against President Bill Clinton, called Mrs. Clinton “very practical” and “very smart and very hard working,” adding, “I have been very struck working with her.”
Newt Gingrich on global warming
Newt Gingrich on foreign policy
Newt Gingrich endorsed a pro-abortion, pro-same-marriage candidate
In a major coup for her campaign, Republican Dede Scozzafava today will pick up the endorsement of Newt Gingrich, one of the nation’s leading conservative figures and the architect of the “Republican Revolution” in the mid-1990s.
“The special election for the 23rd Congressional District is an important test leading up to the mid-term 2010 elections,” Gingrich said in a statement to supporters. “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here, with Dede Scozzafava.”
The endorsement is important for Scozzafava, a social moderate, as she attempts to hold onto a conservative base eroded by Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate in the thee-way 23rd District race.
[…]Hoffman has mounted a late surge in the special election with endorsements by prominent conservatives that include former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson; Campaign for Working Families founder Gary Bauer; and the conservative Club for Growth in Washington, D.C.
Scozzafava’s candidacy is also reported to have triggered a deep divide among House Republicans, with some of the most conservative members refusing to support her campaign.
But Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, wants to unite the party. He sees Scozzafava and the Upstate special election – the only House race in the nation this fall — as the best hope for Republicans to start a comeback and regain control of Congress.
Gingrich is apparently willing to overlook Scozzafava’s support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
The conservative Club for Growth lists some of his fiscal blunders.
Excerpt:
The second large error in Gingrich’s entitlement record was equally troubling: the former Speaker played a high profile advocacy role on behalf of President George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit bill in 2003. Gingrich penned several op-eds supporting the general thrust and specific provisions of the bill, urging House Republicans to pass what was billed at the time to be a $400 billion expansion of the federal government.
[…]In the 2009 special election for Congress in New York’s 23rd district, Gingrich was outspoken in his support of liberal Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, up to the moment she finally quit the race after center-right voters rallied behind Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. Long after most prominent conservatives had endorsed Hoffman, Gingrich held firm in his advocacy for a liberal candidate who supported Obama’s stimulus plan and the pro-union “card check” proposal, among other bad positions.
In 2010, Gingrich openly campaigned for embattled U.S. Senator Robert Bennett in Utah, whom Gingrich’s wrongly called “a true-blue conservative.” In 2008, Gingrich aggressively supported and campaigned for liberal Congressman Wayne Gilchrist (R-MD) when he faced a conservative challenge from now-Congressman Andy Harris. In 2006, same thing, when Gingrich backed liberal Congressman Joe Schwarz (R-MI) when he was challenged by conservative now-Congressman Tim Walberg.
Unfortunately, the problems in Speaker Gingrich’s record are frequent enough and serious enough to give pause. On two of the most important recent issues that confronted limited government conservatives (creating the new budget busting Medicare drug entitlement, and the Wall Street bailout), Gingrich was on the wrong side. His advocacy of an individual health care mandate is problematic. His penchant for tinkering with rewards for favored industries and outcomes shows a troubling willingness to use federal power to coerce taxpayers into his preferred direction. And his occasional hostility toward conservatives who do not share his desire to support liberal Republicans or to compromise on matters of principle is worrisome.
Maybe he is actually running to win the Democrat nomination this time.
I love the ad. ESPECIALLY the cigarette. And, of course, the ad has gone viral. Duh. That was the whole point of Mark Block smoking the cigarette. It grabs your attention.
Businessman Herman Cain is now atop the field of Republican White House hopefuls, squeaking past former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.
Cain garnered 25 percent support of Republican primary voters in the poll released on Tuesday, compared to Romney’s 21 percent.
Stacy McCain notes that this poll was taken during October 19-24, entirely after the Las Vegas debate.
This lead will only go up, now that Cain has 100% of the Marlboro Man vote because of this cigarette campaign ad. I love listening to the cigarette ads on old time radio shows, and this ad reminds me of those days before political correctness. There are so many immoral things that people minimize, but they fuss about things like smoking bans and recycling. I think we should let people smoke in bars if they want to. And not force people to wear seat belts. I think that ad is going to resonate with mainstream America.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee last year accepted $52,000 in speaking fees from a biotech giant that wants to research human embryonic stem cells, a non-profit working to expand access to the morning-after pill and a group pushing to study whether tightening gun control laws will reduce violence.
You know how I pick on Romney for being liberal? Huckabee is more of a RINO than Romney.
WINTERY KNIGHT 