2008 Fox News NH Republican primary debate, Jan. 6, 2008: on Tax Reform

John McCain: Supported Reagan tax cuts because matched by spending cuts

McCAIN: When I first came to Congress, we were in the middle of the Reagan revolution, and I was proud to be a foot soldier in that revolution. And we cut taxes. But we cut spending. And Ronald Reagan insisted that we cut spending, because he knew that it was vital, if we were going to keep the deficit down and not have the fiscal difficulties we have today, we had to cut spending. I’m proud to have supported those tax cuts. And I believe that if we had done what I wanted to do--cut taxes and, at the same time, cut spending--we’d be talking about more tax cuts today. But we let spending get out of control. Unfortunately, we betrayed one of the principles of the Republican Party. I’m in favor of tax cuts. We’ll do them. But we’ll cut spending when I’m president.

Mike Huckabee: Raising fees is the same as raising taxes

ROMNEY: We raised fees by $240 million in our state because we had a whole series of fees that hadn’t been raised, in some cases, in decades, so we brought them up to the cost of providing services. These were not broad-based fees that were required for all people to pay, rather for specialized services.

HUCKABEE: It’s semantics about taxes and fees: if you’re a small business owner or you pay the fee, it’s as much out of your pocket. You can call it a fee, you can call it a tax, it’s still money the government’s taking from you. It’s the same thing.

ROMNEY: I came in, there was a $3 billion budget gap. Together with the legislature, we cut spending, we also raised fees, and we calculated how much money we raised in the fees. It was $240 million. We can show you the number.

HUCKABEE: The fees I think you raised were more like half a billion dollars, not $240 million.

Mike Huckabee: Raised AR net tax burden by $500M to comply with court order

HUCKABEE: There had never been a broad-based tax cut in the 160-year history of my state, & I signed the first one. I cut taxes 94 times. We eliminated the marriage penalty. We doubled the child tax care credit. We indexed the income tax for inflation. We froze property taxes for seniors so they didn’t lose their homes due to increases in property taxes.

ROMNEY: Facts are different things. Net-net, didn’t you raise taxes in your state by half a billion dollars?

HUCKABEE: By a court order that said we had to improve education. Maybe you don’t have to obey the court in Massachusetts. I did in Arkansas. And you know something? Education is a good thing for kids, because kids like me wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for [public education].

Mitt Romney: Raised $240M in MA fees, but only covering cost of services

ROMNEY: First of all, we raised fees by $240 million in our state because we had a whole series of fees that hadn’t been raised, in some cases, in decades, so we brought them up to the cost of providing services. These were not broad-based fees that were required for all people to pay, rather for specialized services.

Mitt Romney: Zero tax rate on capital gains, for incomes up to $200,000

Mitt Romney: Lowering taxes, like Bush tax cuts, grows the economy

ROMNEY: Lowering taxes grows the economy. Lowering taxes helps build jobs & helps working families, and so I strongly have been of the view that one of the great lessons for Ronald Reagan was that lowering taxes helped built our economy. Sen. McCain was one of two Republicans who voted against the Bush tax cuts. I believe the Bush tax cuts helped our economy grow and are one of the reasons that we’re not in a recession today Senator McCain continues to believe that that was the right vote to take, and I respect that that’s his view. I just happen to disagree with it. As governor, I fought tirelessly to reduce taxes. We cut taxes some 19 times in our state, and we held down s

Mitt Romney: FactCheck: Never opposed 2003 Bush cuts, but never supported

HUCKABEE: Did you support or oppose the 2002 Bush tax cuts?

ROMNEY: I have never opposed the Bush 2002 tax cuts. I supported them. The first comment I made about the Bush tax cuts was that I supported the Bush tax cuts.

Huckabee is referring to the 2003 cuts, which occurred right at the beginning of Romney’s term as governor. Romney is correct to say that he neve publicly opposed Bush’s tax cuts. But while he may have supported them, we find no record of his doing so in public. Indeed, Romney rather pointedly refused to endorse the Bush tax cuts in 2003. The Boston Globe cited Romney telling the state’s congressional delegation that he “won’t be a cheerleader” for tax cuts that he doesn’t agree with. According to this account, Romney added that he wouldn’t oppose Bush’s cuts either, because he “has to keep a solid relationship with the White House.”

Rudy Giuliani: Recommended 64 tax cuts; accomplished 23 of them

A: Not at all. I actually recommended 64 tax cuts and accomplished 23 of them. 18 of them were the ones I originally proposed, and the balance were ones that I accepted and comprised. So that makes up the 23. The overall tax burden on New Yorkers were reduced by 17% by the time I left office. It was the largest tax cut ever done in the history of the city, it was the largest tax cut done in government, anywhere, in the 1990s, including all city, all state, all federal level, because the federal level raised taxes during that period.

Rudy Giuliani: I am a supply-sider; and I actually made it work

I am a supply sider. I believe if you need more revenue, one of the first things you go look to is an anti-competitive tax. Right now, if we reduced the corporate tax, which is the second highest in the world, 35%, if we reduced it to 30% or to 25%, we would make more money.

And the Bush tax cuts did the same thing. The Bush tax cuts are now yielding the United States government more money than we were getting when we had the higher tax. So, everyone has their record to look to, we have all different pluses and minuses, but from the point of view of being a tax-cutter, I had the best record of anyone in government in the 1990s in cutting taxes.

Rudy Giuliani: FactCheck: Claimed 34% NYC hotel tax cut; actual cut was 14%

There are two hotel occupancy taxes in New York, one local and one state-imposed. The local hotel tax, based on a $200-per-night room, went from 7% to 6%, a cut of 14.3%. This is the one Giuliani would be most responsible for, so his claim of a 34% cut is far too high (The combined state and local tax went from 12% to 6%, a 50% cut.)

Hotel tax revenues didn’t rise as much as he says, either. In 1994 they were $129 million, and in 2001, they were up to $243 million--a respectable increase of 88.6%, but not a jump of $200 million as he claimed.

Overall, a 1997 study found, the city’s 1 percentage point reduction in its hotel occupancy tax rate generated only enough increased activity “to offset as much as half of the direct cost of the tax cut.”