{"id":297,"date":"2011-12-01T21:40:12","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T02:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=297"},"modified":"2011-12-01T21:40:12","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T02:40:12","slug":"an-honest-look-at-jon-huntsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/12\/an-honest-look-at-jon-huntsman.html","title":{"rendered":"An Honest Look at Jon Huntsman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Utahgovernor Jon Huntsman has just barely been able to have his voice heard in the Republican Party\u2019s presidential primary race, so low are his polling numbers.\u00a0 Yet, still, he is <\/em>a candidate that, not unlike every other such candidate, proudly proclaims his commitment to liberty and, hence, \u201climited government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But is Huntsman really who he claims to be?\u00a0<\/p>\n

This<\/em> is the question with which we must concern ourselves.\u00a0 Yet as we will see, just a brief look at Huntsman\u2019s utterances and deeds discloses in no time that, in his case, appearance is eons apart from reality.<\/p>\n

To Huntsman\u2019s credit, as governor ofUtahhe presided over tax cuts\u2014sales taxes especially\u2014and a simplification of the overall tax code.\u00a0 For this, the Cato Institute lavished praise upon him.\u00a0 Yet lest we hastily exploit this fact as proof of his commitment to smaller government, we would be well served to note that the very same libertarian-friendly think tank criticized Huntsman for having \u201ccompletely dropped the ball on spending, with per capita spending increasing at about 10 percent annually during his tenure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huntsman believes in \u201cglobal warming,\u201d and in 2007 he combined forces with the governors of others states to sign the Western Climate Initiative, a bill oriented toward reducing the generation of greenhouse gasses.\u00a0 This, it is worth observing, would have been bad enough if it was just a matter of the governments of individual states asserting their sovereignty over an issue.\u00a0 But Huntsman does not have the \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d card at his disposal in this case.\u00a0 As it turns out, he appeared in an ad for the organization Environmental Defense, an ad in which he demanded that the federal <\/em>government \u201cact by capping greenhouse-gas pollution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That Huntsman has now <\/em>retreated from this position seems more than coincidental.\u00a0 However, his stated reason <\/em>for revising his earlier view is telling: \u201cMuch of this discussion [concerning \u2018Cap-and-Trade\u2019] happened before the bottom fell out of the economy, and until it comes back, this isn\u2019t the moment <\/em>[for \u2018Cap-and-Trade\u2019]\u201d (emphases mine).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notice, for Huntsman, the problem with so-called \u201cCap-and-Trade\u201d hasn\u2019t anything whatsoever to do with liberty; <\/em>the problem\u2014presumably, the only <\/em>problem that would prevent us from pursuing this policy\u2014is that we lack the material resources to effectively implement it. \u201cFive years ago\u201d we could afford to permit the federal government to conscript American taxpayers into the service of subsidizing this gargantuan policy; today we cannot.\u00a0 However, once our economy bounces back, we will then be able to afford it once more!<\/p>\n

On immigration, Huntsman is no different from his colleague and rival, Rick Perry.\u00a0 Perry, everyone now knows, permitted illegal aliens pursuing a higher education at any of Texas\u2019s public universities and colleges to pay in-state tuition rates.\u00a0 Less well known is that Huntsman was equally generous with the resources of Utah\u2019s citizens toward the illegal aliens in his<\/em> state.\u00a0 As Governor, he promised to veto any bill that would deprive the illegal residents of Utah of the benefit of in-state tuition rates should they go to college.\u00a0 Huntsman also signed a bill granting illegal aliens \u201cdriving-privilege cards.\u201d\u00a0 Under this bill,Utah\u2019s illegal residents would be permitted to obtain driving \u201cprivileges,\u201d but they would not be permitted to use these licenses as forms of identification.<\/p>\n

American liberty is inseparable from the rule of law.\u00a0 Indeed, without the rule of law, there is no liberty.\u00a0 Those who would govern should <\/em>know this better than anyone.\u00a0 Thus, when someone, like Huntsman, who is entrusted with the heavy responsibility of safeguarding the law not only fails to do so but actively undercuts it, he reveals himself to be a threat to our liberty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More recently, Huntsman expressed his desire to break apart our nation\u2019s largest financial institutions, those banks that the conventional wisdom deems \u201ctoo big to fail.\u201d\u00a0 That this is no mere desire on his part, that it is something to which he has given considerable thought, is born out by the fact that he has actually designed a plan to bring it about.\u00a0 According to Huntsman, the only way we can avoid taxpayer-subsidized bank bailouts of the sort to which we were subjected in 2008 is to legislate<\/em> out of existence these banks that are, supposedly, \u201ctoo big to fail.\u201d\u00a0 Because, in his estimation, the banks at present remain \u201ctoo big to fail,\u201d the bailouts of 2008 were necessary.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Given these aspects of Jon Huntsman\u2019s record, it is no wonder that the left-leaning Huffingtonpost described him as a Republican \u201cwith moderate positions who was willing to work substantively with<\/em>\u201d President Obama.<\/p>\n

As far as his approach to foreign policy is concerned, although it is true that he opposes the Patriot Act and seeks to bring American military personnel home from the Middle East sooner rather than later, it would be a mistake to conclude from this that Huntsman is any less of an \u201cinterventionist\u201d than his more hawkish Republican colleagues.\u00a0 Prior to being confirmed as President Obama\u2019s Ambassador toChina, Huntsman promised that, if his confirmation went through, he would see to it that there would be \u201crobust engagement\u201d with China vis-\u00e0-vis the issue of \u201chuman rights.\u201d\u00a0 He also advocates an American\/China alliance\u00a0to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.<\/p>\n

Our analysis need go no further, for our conclusion is inescapable: Jon Huntsman is an apostle of Big Government.<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

originally published in The New American\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Utahgovernor Jon Huntsman has just barely been able to have his voice heard in the Republican Party\u2019s presidential primary race, so low are his polling numbers.\u00a0 Yet, still, he is a candidate that, not unlike every other such candidate, proudly proclaims his commitment to liberty and, hence, \u201climited government.\u201d\u00a0 But is Huntsman really who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Honest Look at Jon Huntsman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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