Mike Huckabee on Technology Former Republican AR Governor; possible draft candidate

Monitor terror on Facebook & Twitter, not Americans' phones

HUCKABEE: No. I'm not taking it away, I just want to make sure that everything we use is going to be effective. We're spending billions of dollars, let's make sure it's effective. Let's use every tool, but let's also check out the Facebook posts, let's look at Twitter accounts. My gosh, we were told we couldn't do it because it might invade somebody's privacy. This lady who came over here and shot up San Bernardino was posting things on Facebook, yet, we were restricted from looking. This is what I think a lot of Americans are frustrated with, it's the duplicity of our policy that is illogical and irrational. Our goal ought to be, "protect Americans and put Americans first not last."

Viral campaign website spawned Huck's Army of bloggers

We went on to develop a comprehensive online strategy and direct-mail operation, nurturing independent (and free) efforts, like Huck's Army and Bloggers for Huckabee. They believed small blogs with their various networks of friends and family was more powerful than a top-down effort focused on winning over the news media. And they were absolutely right. It was a "viral" movement--small dedicated groups reaching out to each other and forming networks of support.

Post every federal expenditure on Internet without 24 hours

Infrastructure: Stimulus, Safety, Security, & Sustainability

My four guiding principles on infrastructure can be summed up simply: Stimulus, Safety, Security, and Sustainability.
1. Stimulus: I support the short-term economic stimulus package, but we must also look to the next century, not just to the next few quarters.
2. Safety: Infrastructure-based economic development is not just about giving our economy a shot in the arm--it is also about protecting and preserving what we have already developed.
3. Security: Allowing these weaknesses to continue provides openings for the terrorists to exploit.
4. Sustainability: I have always been a conservationist. Stewardship of the air and land and soil is very important to me. I will follow the principle I learned from the Boy Scouts: Always leave the land better than when you found it. I am proud of my record in Arkansas, building constructive consensus on key issues. I look forward to bringing the same leadership to America.

Infrastructure in this country has been neglected

Every $1B spent on infrastructure creates 47,500 jobs

A: The problem I have is that taxpayers will spend their $150 billion in rebates to buy imports from China. So whose economy is being stimulated? What I suggested was, we have a nation whose infrastructure is crumbling. Our roads, bridges, airports clogged up. Texas A&M did a study, found that the average American in an urban setting loses 38 hours a year--that’s a full work week--stuck in traffic because of clogged traffic patterns. Now, $150 billion would expand the interstate by two lanes, I-95, from Bangor, Maine, to Miami. There are places all over America where our infrastructure is choked. Every billion dollars we spend on infrastructure creates 47,500 jobs. And we do it with American labor, American cement, American steel. That’s why I’m saying that that’s a real long-term stimulus package. But it does more than just stimulate the economy, it actually stimulates jobs for Americans for a change.

$150B for highway infrastructure is better stimulus package

And the reason I say that is because when we were going through a recession in my state, we were in the middle of a billion-dollar highway construction program that brought about 40,000 jobs and brought a billion dollars of capital into the economy. That’s a long- term stimulus package that I think would have more impact on the American long-term future. And it would keep social capital from being wasted, fuel wasted. A lot of people sit around in traffic every day, and we’ve done nothing about it.

Improved AR roads, via voter-approved tax increase

A: He made claims about things like tax increases, but he failed to mention that they were voted on by the people & approved by the people for roads. And I left my roads in great shape, took them from the worst in the country to what Truckers Magazine said were the most improved. He left his roads in a mess, with huge problems in the infrastructure. He claimed that he didn’t raise taxes, but, in fact, he did raise taxes by half a billion dollars.

Q: As fees.

A: Yes, fees. It’s a tax. If you’re a small business person and you pay more money than you paid last year to the government, you can call it a fee, call it a tax, it’s a three letter word that means the same.

Q: But you raised taxes.

A: Well, [we used revenue to] build highways that give you economic incentives and capacities that, frankly, created the lowest unemployment numbers that our state had over had over a sustained period of time. We saw more new jobs created.

We modernized Arkansas & made state accessible online

We went from a road system that was deemed the worst in the country, by Truckers Magazine, to the most improved. I changed the way to get a driver’s license so that, instead of it taking seven hours, all day, it took four minutes on the Internet.

Brown University said we had done more in technology to make our state accessible online and to do more electronic services than any other state in the country.

So what we did, we modernized Arkansas. We rebuilt its education system. The things that were done were done to make government functional. People don’t hate government. They just want it to work. And that’s what we did in my state, and that’s what I would do as president.

Air tech is Jetsons but air traffic control is Flintstones

A: Well, as president, that would be one of the first things I’d like to do, since I’ve spent most of my year on an airline this entire time. First of all, we’ve got to have the kind of technology on the ground that we have in the cockpit. We’ve got Jetsons-level technology that’s running the cockpit; we have the Flintstones technology on the ground that’s controlling the airplanes. And it’s ridiculous. And the second thing, we’ve got an incredibly archaic method of the controls where you have incredible traffic coming in to key hubs. I don’t want to re-regulate the industry, but the industry’s going to have to start either getting in the program--and one thing they’ve got to stop doing is holding the passengers hostage on airplanes for hours and hours without any way of being able to get off those planes. And part of it, I think, is let’s make sure that the consumer gets a voice in what happens. And it’s got to be a priority.

No Fairness Doctrine: no equal time if morally objectionable

• HUCKABEE: Yes.
• TANCREDO: Yes.
• COX: Yes.
• BROWNBACK: Yes.
• PAUL: Yes.
• HUNTER: Yes.
• KEYES: Yes.

Apply broadcast indecency rules to cable networks

• HUCKABEE: Yes.
• TANCREDO: Yes.
• COX: Yes.
• BROWNBACK: Yes.
• PAUL: No.
• HUNTER: Yes.
• KEYES: Yes.

Spend on our infrastructure instead of other countries’

A: It’s not necessary that we raise a tax. We’re spending billions of dollars all around the world, but it may be time that we start spending some of those billions of dollars to deal with our own infrastructure. And it’s our bridges, our interstates, our sewer and water treatment systems. They’re crumbling. They’re old. And we have to start addressing building this country, not everybody else’s.

Cars’ navigation systems are better than air traffic control

TV is like fire; pols must use it even though it can burn

One is not to be afraid. Whether you like it or not, the media provide the vehicle through which whatever you do or say is delivered to people. I had to accept the reality that Arkansans’ perceptions of me and what I was doing came through the media.

Second, you must diversify your contacts with various types of media. Neither have one reporters or paper be your only contact. Do not become dependent on one medium. All are important. Now there are new technologies like the Internet.

If the medium for moving public policy is TV, then understand that TV is the field of play & learn to run on it. It does not mean you have to give up your intellect; it means you have to be able to demonstrate that intellect in the medium the public has chosen. If you cannot do that, you probably are not going to be successful in politics today.

More bible; less blogs; more music; less network TV

• Don’t believe bad reports without documentation.
• Read the Bible more; blogs less.
• Read more from the “Features” page and less from the “Letters to theEditor.”
• Listen to more music and less talk radio.
• Watch classic films made before 1968.
• Read biographies.
• Read magazines about your favorite hobbies.
• Have regular conversations with people very unlike you (race, religion, political party, ethnic background).
• Do volunteer work with the impoverished, disabled, or ill.
• Write letters of praise to total strangers you read about who do wonderful things.
• Practice what my philanthropist friend calls “Random Acts of Kindness.”
• Watch TV Land and Nick @ Nit Source: From Hope to Higher Ground, by Mike Huckabee, p. 30 , Jan 4, 2007

  Supports Internet sales tax

  Q: Should Internet sales be taxed?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Should Arkansas institute a state lottery?

  A: No.

  Q: Do you support eliminating the sales tax on food?

  A: Yes.

  Source: 2002 AR Gubernatorial National Political Awareness Test , Nov 1, 2002

  Arkansas becoming a leader in e-government

  I got a phone call from former Gov. Pete Wilson of California. Pete Wilson is now in a global telecommunications and technology business. He said one of the things he does is evaluate states that are moving toward e-government. He said, “Mike, we have looked at all 50 states, and Arkansas is leading the nation in moving toward e-government. No state has quite moved forward as your state has in becoming a leader in bringing its state services on-line and using technology effectively for its taxpayers.” Source: 2001 State of the State address to the Arkansas legislature , Jan 9, 2001

  Mass profanity is at its worst in pop music

  Coarse language is no longer taboo. Talk that was barely whispered a generation ago is broadcast at full volume today. The pollution of our verbal ecology has become rampant.

  Popular music has descended to even more astonishing depths. Graphic language detailing the most horrifying cavortings of barbarism is widely heralded as "honest," "liberating," "refreshing." Anyone daring to express qualms about this vulgar preoccupation with adultery, fornication, and fellatio--to say nothing of rape, incest, and mutilation--is likely to be mocked as a "prude," a "goody-goody," and a "moralistic fundamentalist."

  But as distressing as the proliferation of profanity in popular media might be, the widespread acceptance of filthy talk in the workplace, in our communities, in our schools, and in our homes is even worse. Swearing hardly causes a ripple of concern anymore. Historically, mass profanity has always been a harbinger of mass violence.

  Source: Kids Who Kill, by Gov. Mike Huckabee, p. 53-55 , Jun 1, 1998

  Road rage means we've lost social inhibitions when driving

  There are few moral or ethical inhibitions against what would have once been considered immature and socially repugnant behavior behind the wheel. 17,000 American were seriously injured in one year in accidents caused by drivers' temper tantrums. Dubbed "road rage" by the popular media, the phenomenon of commuters swearing at one another, exchanging obscene gestures, or even brandishing handguns after some traffic discourtesy has become epidemic in many metropolitan areas around the country.

  What is surprising is that road rage knows no social bounds. Recorded incidents over the past 2 years have involved the rich and the poor, the well-educated and the illiterate, the suburbanite and the urban dweller, the young and the old, the employed and the unemployed.

  One journalist says "Road rage is symptomatic of a culture in trouble, of a people lacking in character, and of a society devoid of the most basic tenets of human respect."

  Source: Kids Who Kill, by Gov. Mike Huckabee, p. 55-56 , Jun 1, 1998

  Entertainment industry is brainwashing kids to kill

  Television shows do not portray real life. A survey of one week's prime time offerings revealed a wide disparity between the lives of Americans and the world of television:
  • Of the 73 sex scenes shown that week, only 4 were between married couples.
  • Only 4 characters that week showed any evidence of religious belief.
  • More than half of the programs aired that week portrayed at least one violent act.
  • 209 occurrences of graphic violence.
  Whatever is wrong with television is doubly wrong with Hollywood films. Television's flimsy restraints are altogether absent in the movies. Add to television, movies, and music the violent or perverse content in many video games and Internet sites, and you have a prescription for cultural disaster.

  What we have done is brainwash our children to hate our culture, to hate authority and substance, to hate us, and to hate each other. And we have effectively trained them to do something about all that hate. So why are we surprised when they do?

  Source: Kids Who Kill, by Gov. Mike Huckabee, p. 75-84 , Jun 1, 1998

  Science cannot create a utopian society

  The utopian vision of society that has so dramatically undermined the family was spawned by a system of thought rooted in the superiority--even the supremacy--of science over every other discipline.

  Science was a kind of new secular predestination. Scientific experts were thus not only the caretakers of the future, they were the guardians of Truth. They were a kind of superhuman elite--like Plato's philosopher-kings--who ruled the untrained masses with a firm but beneficent hand in order to realize progress. Thus, science has to become an instrument of social transformation.

  In the 20th century, science and millenarian politics were woven together into a crazy quilt of idealism, fanaticism, and ambition. The sad experience of the 20th century-- two devastating world wars, unnumbered holocausts and genocides--ultimately exposed its high-flying ideals as the noisome eccentricities they were. The fact is, science is not infallible. Society is not perfectible. Utopia is not attainable.

  Source: Kids Who Kill, by Gov. Mike Huckabee, p. 90-93 , Jun 1, 1998

  Opposes public electronic voting; wouldn’t focus on issues

  Television is a wonderful communications tool and will help to communicate issues to the voters, but it would be impossible to have an effective and fairly administered two-way communication system in which the public could vote electronically on major issues. In addition, issues might be decided on the basis of which groups could most effectively communicate by television, not which groups really presented the most convincing and/or constitutionally sound arguments. Source: Associated Press Questionnaire for AR Senate Debate , Nov 1, 1992

  Level playing field for Main Street vs. Internet sales tax.

  Huckabee adopted a letter to Congress from 44 Governors:

  The nation’s governors have a strong and unified message to Congress: deal fairly with Main Street retailers, consumers, and local governments. In a letter sent to all members of Congress late Friday, 44 governors said:

  If you care about a level playing field for Main Street retail businesses and local control of states, local governments, and schools, extend the moratorium on taxing Internet access ONLY with authorization for the states to streamline and simplify the existing sales tax system. To do otherwise perpetuates a fundamental inequity and ignores a growing problem.

  The current moratorium on Internet access taxes, like those consumers pay to Internet service providers, and multiple and discriminatory taxes is scheduled to expire in October. The moratorium does not apply to sales taxes.

  Currently, sales and use taxes are owed on all online transactions, but states are prohibited from requiring “remote sellers” to collect and remit those levies. A 1992 US Supreme Court decision said states can only require sellers that have a physical presence in the same state as the consumer to collect so-called use taxes. In instances when a seller does not have a physical presence, consumers are required to calculate and remit the taxes owed to their home states at the end of the year. The problem is most people are unaware that they’re supposed to pay, and states lack an effective enforcement mechanism. Online and catalog sellers, thereby, have a significant price advantage over Main Street businesses that must collect a sales tax on all transactions.

  The loophole creates serious budget problems for schools, states, and local governments. A study estimated that states could lose as much as $14 billion by 2004 if they are unable to collect existing taxes on Web-based sales. Nearly half of state revenues come from sales taxes.

  Source: NGA Press Release, "Level Playing Field" 01-NGA18 on Aug 20, 2001

  Permanent R&D tax incentive & more R&D funding.

  Huckabee co-sponsored the Southern Governors' Association resolution:

• Whereas, the federal government’s investment in research and development (R&D) has dropped from 70% of total, national R&D at the height of the “cold war” to merely 27% in 1999; and,
• Whereas, federal R&D spending has dropped from 1.5% of the Gross National Product (GDP) in 1987 to only 0.6% today; and,
• Whereas, industry-sponsored R&D has off-set this decline by merely growing from 1.5% of GDP in 1987 to 1.6% today; and,
• Whereas, federal leadership in technology transfer is of critical importance to the development and commercialization of established intellectual property; and,
• Whereas, broadband, high-speed Internet technology is an essential asset to support the New Economy and foster a climate to aid R&D efforts; and,
• Whereas, the advancement of digital government can foster supportive services important to research and development including cataloging of labor, statistics and venture capital, and further, can enhance citizen access and coordination of government information and services; now, therefore, be it
• Resolved, That the Southern Governors’ Association urges Congress and the Administration to:
  • Substantially increase all areas of research and development funding, and enact a permanent tax incentive for R&D and a tax election to exchange research-related benefits for a refundable tax credit;
  • Pass legislation to bolster federal technology transfer efforts, ensuring that a sense of urgency exists in tech transfer officers of government agencies;
  • Support legislation and regulations that will speed the deployment of broadband, high speed Internet networking throughout the nation; and,
  • Establish a federal chief information office within the Office of Management and Budget.