‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 30, 2007

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  Our issues this Sunday, this is it, the Iowa caucuses just four days away.  Democrats Clinton, Edwards and Obama locked in a tight battle; Republicans Huckabee and Romney fighting for victory.  With us, the former governor of Arkansas, Republican Mike Huckabee and the senator from Illinois, Democrat Barack Obama.  Huckabee and Obama, only on MEET THE PRESS.

But first, here are the very latest MSNBC/McClatchy polling numbers for the Republicans in Iowa:  Romney has 27 percent, up seven points from earlier this month.  Huckabee, 23 percent, down nine points.  Thompson, 14 percent, up three points.  McCain, 13 percent, up six points.  Giuliani, he stays even at 5 percent.

Governor Mike Huckabee, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

FMR. GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (R-AR):  Thank you very much, Tim.  Pleasure to be back.

MR. RUSSERT:  You've dropped nine points in less than a month.  What happened?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, I think the polls are all over the place.  We have some that show us up eight points.  This one that came out today shows us down nine.  I don't think anybody has a clue.  We'll find out Thursday night how they're doing.

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you think some of the commercials that have been on the air talking about your record have hurt?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, they may have.  I mean, people in Iowa have been bombarded.  I mean, bombarded.  Not only on commercials, but in the mail, at a time when most people were kind of looking forward to going out to the mailbox and picking up some nice Christmas cards, instead they were finding out what a bum Mike Huckabee is.  And I don't know what kind of effect it has.  People of Iowa, I think, like a positive campaign.  But the relentless attacks--and they have been relentless.  And when you're outspent 20-to-1, as I have been here in Iowa, you know, I think it's pretty amazing that I'm where I am.

MR. RUSSERT:  But has Mitt Romney said anything that's untrue about you?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  How long do we have on the program today?  He's said many things that are untrue.  He said that I reduced methamphetamine sentences in Arkansas.  Truth is I signed a bill in 1999 that doubled those sentences.  We did not reduce them.  Our sentences were four times harsher than they were in Massachusetts.  He said that I supported special breaks for illegal aliens. That's not true, Tim.  We supported simply giving children who had earned a scholarship the same--it never happened, it didn't make the legislature.  He made allegations that our increased spending by ridiculous amounts, and The New York Times came back and defended that, and said that's just simply not true.  And they took him apart and showed that the increases in spending were, frankly, the same if not a little better than his if you took into consideration the accounting methods we changed in Arkansas, very modest gains in spending.

He made claims about things like tax increases, but he failed to mention that some of those were either court ordered or they were voted on by the people and approved by the people for things as 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 in Massachusetts, 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.

MR. RUSSERT:  Fees.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  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.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you raised taxes, and the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, gave you a D and an F for your tenureship as governor.  So there have been some legitimate criticisms of you as a Republican for raising taxes and for spending money.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, I don't think they're legitimate criticisms when you improve education for the children of your state or when you 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.  That's what being a governor is about.  It's about creating opportunities for the people of your state.

MR. RUSSERT:  Even if it means raising taxes?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, in some cases, you know, I cut 94 taxes.  People forget what we did do on a positive nature:  eliminated the marriage penalty, indexed the income tax for inflation so low-income people weren't paying high tax rates.  So what we tried to do in tax policy by doubling the child care tax credit and by raising the threshold at which people paid, we untaxed a lot of the poor people and gave them a shot at actually making it up the economic ladder.

Now, when we raised taxes, it was one of two things, either to meet an educational demand--our schools were deemed by the courts to be unconstitutional.  In Arkansas, we've been down the road of a governor defying the courts and saying, `I'm not going to follow the court order.' Didn't turn out real well.  I wasn't going to be the second Arkansas governor to do that. In fact, I'm proud of the fact that we raised teacher pay, proud of the fact that, in every year we tested kids, we saw vast improvements in their test scores, things were--got better, not worse.  And education was my ticket out of the, out of the bottom of the economic spectrum.  Education is a key for every child.  And I want to make sure that if we're going to spend more money--and the court said we have to--then the next thing is, let's make sure we spend it well and we spend it wisely.

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