Huntsman Drops Out: Is Set To Endorse Romney, Whom He Called ‘Unelectable’

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) informed his advisers today that he is dropping out of the presidential race. After his third place finish in New Hampshire’s primary, Huntsman declared that he had a “ticket to ride” but it appears the be on a bus owned by GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, whom Huntsman is now expected to endorse. “The governor and his family, at this point in the race, decided it was time for Republicans to rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy,” Huntsman adviser Matt David said in a statement. “That candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”

While the statement was not an official endorsement, CBS reports “Huntsman is expected to throw his endorsement to current front-runner Mitt Romney.”

Last week, Huntsman told CNBC that Romney was making himself “completely unelectable.”

Huntsman’s decision may have been influenced by the fact that a powerful group of social conservatives called on conservative to coalesce around Rick Santorum as the anti-Romney candidate this weekend.

ANCESTRY.COM: GEORGE W. BUSH, MITT ROMNEY, AND JON HUNTSMAN ARE COUSINS

 By Tanya Somanader/Think Progress




According to the world’s largest online family ancestry database Ancestry.com, former President George W. Bush and presidential contender Mitt Romney are cousins — 10th cousins, twice removed. Indeed, the Ancestry.com, historians found that “[Mitt] Romney is actually related to six past presidents — more than any other 2012 GOP contestant.” It turns out that Romney shares a similar bloodline to fellow candidate (and Mormon) Jon Huntsman. Romney’s great-great-grandfather, an early Mormon missionary, is actually Huntsman’s great-great-great-grandfather. The “Romney-Hunstman-George W. Bush connection comes through Anne Marbury Hutchinson, who was a religious-freedom advocate in early 1600s.” Granted, none of this has any bearing on the candidates’ qualifications for the presidency. It does, however, provide great fodder for a potentially hilarious family reunion.


Motor City Liberal Comment: So voting for Mitt Romney would be like voting for George W.Bush.

Huntsman Says Romney Has ‘Little Credibility’ On Health Care, Even Though Romneycare Has Worked

By Travis Waldron 

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) joined the list of candidates criticizing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) health care plan Wednesday, using an appearance on Good Morning America and a campaign stop in South Carolina to say Romney lacked credibility in the health care debate.

Romneycare, which Huntsman and other Republicans don’t count as a “free market” solution, has plenty of credibility in Massachusetts. Recent polling shows that63 percent of Massachusetts residents view Romneycare favorably, and the law has been successful on multiple fronts, most notably reducing the state’s uninsured rate to just 1.9 percent. Comparatively, in Utah, 14 percent of the population remains uninsured despite Huntsman’s so-called “free market” reforms.

Yesterday, Huntsman chose to ignore those facts when he argued that Romney had no credibility on the issue:

HUNTSMAN: The question was, when someone who passed and signed that particular law is talking about free market health care, do they have credibility? Otherwise, governors can do whatever they want to do, whatever the aspirations of the people in their state dictate, they can move in that direction. I think the answer was, he would have little credibility talking about market-based health care plans having signed onto that.

Watch it:

Huntsman, who once flirted with the idea of a mandate himself, is correct that Romney lacks credibility on health care. But it’s because Romney has chosen to change his position andignore the success of the law he signed, not because he signed a law that isn’t working.

Six Ways Jon Huntsman Would Hurt The American Economy

By Travis Waldron

Former Utah Gov. and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman (R) announced his candidacy for president this morning, and in doing so, he became the latest candidate to declare that he is running to fix the American economy. Though Huntsman’s polling numbers are rather unimpressive, his sometimes progressive stances on various issues have earned him the “moderate” tag and made him a media darling.

But a closer look at his past reveals that when it comes to economics, Huntsman is a garden variety conservative who wants to cut taxes, gut popular social welfare programs, and pursue economic policies that would do nothing to restore the American economy. ThinkProgress compiled a list of six positions Huntsman has taken that would actually hurt our economy:

The state’s budget deficit increased dramatically during his tenure: In fiscal year 2003, two years before Huntsman took over as governor, the state of Utah had a $173 million budget deficit, leading then-Gov. Michael Leavitt (R) to speak to the state legislature about the state’s “budget crisis.” But when Huntsman took office in 2005, he began pursuing policies that reduced state revenues and increased the state’s budget deficit. In fiscal year 2009, Huntsman’s final one before he took the ambassadorship, Utah was forced to rely on rainy day funds and federal stimulus dollars to close a $1 billion budget gap.

He supports a flat tax, and instituted one in Utah: In 2007, Huntsman signed legislation that transformed Utah’s graduated income tax into a flat tax, with a standard rate of 5 percent. The flat tax sharply reduced taxes on the state’s richest residents and became, as Citizens for Tax Justice called it, a “case study in why states should reject the flat tax.” The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that, while the poorest 20 percent of Utahns paid a 9 percent of their income in taxes, while the richest one percent paid just just 4.9 percent of theirs. CTJ also found that the tax cut blew a hole in Utah’s budget, reducing income tax revenues by $300 million in 2009.

He supports slashing corporate taxes, and tried to eliminate them completely in Utah: While governor, Huntsman made an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate Utah’s corporate tax rate altogether, an effort that was stymied when lawmakers saw the price tag. The policy would have cost the state at least $200 million in revenue. Huntsman, whose family started and still owns one of the nation’s largest chemical corporations, now supports slashing the federal corporate tax rate.

He would end Medicare as we know it: Huntsman didn’t hesitate to endorse the House GOP’s budget plan, which would end Medicare as it exists now by turning it into a voucher program. Huntsman embraced the program despite saying that, in years past, it would have (and should have) been “laughed out of the room.” The House plan nearly doubles the cost of health insurance for senior citizens by 2023, increases the nation’s health care costs by trillions of dollars, and relies on mathematical magic. And after all of that, it still doesn’t balance the budget.

He believes in climate change, but not in doing anything to stop it: Like many of his fellow candidates, Huntsman at one time was an advocate for a cap-and-trade system and signed his state onto the Western Climate Initiative. Huntsman has, however, walked back his support of cap-and-trade, using economic concerns to say that “cap-and-trade ideas aren’t working” and “this isn’t the moment” to address the changing climate because it does not promote growth. In reality, this stance ignores the successes of similar policies in the northeast and in Europe, and the fact that investments in renewable energy create four times as many jobs as investment in oil and gas.

He supports a radical Balanced Budget Amendment: Huntsman recently announced his support for a Balanced Budget Amendment, a potentiallydisastrous policy Senate Republicans have used to hold the increase in the debt ceiling hostage. The BBA would prevent the government from running deficits when deficits are necessary, such as during deep recessions. Even former GOP advisers have said the idea “is, quite simply, insane,” as “debt in itself is not harmful,” and have suggested that it would only serve to make recessions worse. The BBA is, in the words of Ezra Klein, the worst idea in Washington, and it’s one Huntsman has openly embraced.