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Mike Huckabee on CorporationsFormer Republican AR Governor; possible draft candidate |
HUCKABEE: Look, corporations ought to exercise some responsibility. When CEO income has risen 90% above the average worker, when the bottom 90% of this country's economy has had stagnant wages for the past 40 years, somebody is taking it in the teeth. And it's not the folks on Wall Street. I'm not anti-Wall Street, but I don't believe the government ought to wear a team jersey, pick winners and losers. The government ought to wear a striped shirt and just make sure the game is played fairly.
HUCKABEE: It's not too big to shrink. But the problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington axis of power that has controlled the political climate. The donor class feeds the political class who does the dance that the donor class wants. And the result is federal government keeps getting bigger. Every person on this stage who has been a governor will tell that you the biggest fight they had was not the other party. Wasn't even the legislature. It was the federal government, who continually put mandates on the states that we had to suck up and pay for. There are a lot of things happening at the federal level that are absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution. This is power that should be shifted back to the states, whether it's the EPA or the Department of Education.
HUCKABEE: There is such a collusion between what happens in the financial world and what happens in the political world. One hand washes another and one feeds another. And who takes it in the teeth? It's most of the working class people of America. Big banks & big insurance companies get bailed out. Why? Because there are campaign contributions that come along with the bailout. I hear politicians that will resent the fact that some single mom is getting some assistance to put food on the table for her three children, and those same people say it's perfectly OK to bail out to the tune of billions big banks who are run by Ivy League people who should have known better how to recklessly mismanaged.
The average embedded tax on what we buy in this country is 22%. That means that when you purchase something and pay $100, the provider got $78 and the government took $22. If you want Congress to put a greater tax burden on businesses, they certainly can do it, but don't think that makes you better off. It means the cost of the product you buy will be higher.
In fact, some big companies have figured out that regulation provides them with an opportunity to "game the system." That is, a large corporation can hire Washington reps who will help create the rigmarole that disproportionately hurts its smaller rivals. That's one reason why big government and big business usually get along so well together.
A: I think the Republican Party needs some repair. The Republican Party needs to remember that its strength was being the champion for small business. 80% of all jobs in this country come from small business. If we become the party that forgets that, if we become the party that does not empower the individual who wants to struggle from his place at the lower end of the economic spectrum up the ladder, then we’re going to lose a lot of the base that gave us great strength, that helped us to become the majority party, that built the Reagan coalition, that also helped elect both George Bush 41 and George Bush 43.
Wal-Mart has become the largest private sector employer in approximately 49 of our 50 states. And somebody apparently likes this company, since 150 million people a week enter its door.
Labor unions in particular have sought to disparage Wal-Mart as a workplace, despite the fact that the average wage paid to its 46,000-strong Arkansas workforce is some $4.50 higher per hour than the minimum wage. A new store in Chicago scheduled to employ 325 people watched as 25,000 applied.
One of the great challenges of life is determining that our pleasure shouldn’t be based on the amount of our treasure. When life and its enjoyment are defined by what we have accumulated, we’re to be pitied rather than envied. Our treasure should never become our job, home, car, property, or any other “toys.” Consumerism can be intoxicating and addictive. Those who are swept up in its power find their occasional moments of ecstasy tied to the purchase of something.
A sense of real peace is achieved only when you can say that material things are genuinely immaterial. It’s not so much what we have but what has us that will determine our inner tranquility. There’s no prohibition in God’s Word to having much, but there’s a strong admonition not to allow even a little to possess us.