LITTLE ROCK -- Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee accused China Monday of reneging on trade deals and continued his push for a national sales tax after stocks tumbled from a widespread sell-off.
The former Arkansas governor returned to his home state for a fundraiser and party to mark his 60th birthday. Huckabee's appearance came the same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 600 points, part of a global wave of selling touched off by signs of a slowdown in China.
"We shouldn't be allowing China to manipulate their currency. We shouldn't allow them to cheat on trade deals. We shouldn't allow them to continue to steal intellectual property from Americans and American companies, and that's resulted in a lot of the loss of jobs," Huckabee told reporters before the event. "We've had trade deals that have not gone well for American workers. In fact, they've been a gut punch for American workers."
Huckabee has been an outspoken critic of what he calls unbalanced trade deals, and opposed giving President Barack Obama "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade agreements. His opposition to the Trade Promotion Authority, which Congress passed earlier this summer, has put him at odds with some top Republicans, including several rivals for the GOP nomination.
Huckabee also used the market loss to continue advocating for a "Fair Tax" that would eliminate federal income and investment taxes and replace them with a 23 percent federal sales tax. The poor would pay no net sales tax up to the poverty level, and every household would receive a rebate equal to sales taxes paid on essential goods and services. Critics, however, have said that such a tax would still be burdensome to lower-income individuals.
"The tax code we have is overly complicated, it's punitive to workers, so if a person's out there working hard, it's actually punishes them for working harder," Huckabee said. "One of the reasons I support the tax on consumption, which is to me far superior than a tax on productivity, is that it is a flat tax but it doesn't tax people what they earn or what they make."
Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses and several other states in his unsuccessful 2008 bid, said he feels good about his campaign's organization in early states. He's running in a much more crowded field this time, with billionaire front-runner Donald Trump dominating most of the attention.
Huckabee said he's trying to avoid spending most of his time talking about his rivals for the GOP nomination.
State Desk on 08/25/2015