From The Trail: Romney v. Rudy

Occasionally, I'm going to run raw dispatches from our NBC/NJ campaign reporters on the campaign trail to illustrate the ebb and flow of daily politics.

Today, Erin McPike on what Mitt Romney said about Rudy Giuliani, and Matthew Berger, on how a Giuliani surrogate responded.

Mitt Romney was asked at a forum at Saint Anselm College's Institute of Politics this morning to contrast his stance on taxes with Rudy Giuliani, and he offered two distinctions: His support for the line-item veto and his pledge for no new taxes.

On the line-item veto, which he launched into first, he blasted Giuliani for arguing against its constitutionality at the Supreme Court during the Clinton administration.

On taxes, he broadened his argument to say that he was the first of all the presidential contenders on both sides of the aisle to sign a pledge against new taxes.

Romney was pressed by reporters after the event to challenge Giuliani's electability argument, which was given a boost today with the release of NBC/WSJ's poll. While he said he didn't want to play pundit, he was forced to explain how he, too, might be able to beat Hillary Clinton. He once again pointed to Michigan as an opportunity for Republicans to gain ground and largely dismissed the idea that New York could be a battleground state.

Gaining his stride against Giuliani, he reiterated that he is the stronger of the two on tax issues and went further in depth on Giuliani's battle with former New York Gov. George Pataki to keep the commuter tax in New York City. Romney recently has been focusing his attacks on Clinton, and today's growing storm against Giuliani marked a shift.

Former Massachusetts Gov. and Giuliani supporter Paul Cellucci responded to Romney's criticism in a conference call Thursday.

"It's a pretty weak argument from a governor who in four years really had no tax cuts for the people of Massachusetts," said Cellucci, calling Romney's attacks a sign of "desperation" as polls tighten in New Hampshire.

Cellucci said Giuliani supported the line-item veto, but believed it needed to be achieved through a constitutional amendment. And he accused Romney of raising taxes for non-Massachusetts residents who worked in the state.

"The record is clear," he said. "Rudy Giuliani cut taxes, brought broad base tax relief for the people of New York."

Comments

Both Romney and Giuliani are lairs. Both have raised taxes. The flipflopper Romney calls his tax increase as "fees". He thinks that voters are fools to believe him. Fr Giuliani, he is anther thrice married, pro-gun-control, pro-abortion adulterer.

Posted by name | October 4, 2007 7:37 PM

Romney faced a $3 billion deficit on his first day of office, and his $250 million of fees accounted for only 10% of the fix. The rest of the shortfall was made up the old fashioned way...cutting spending. Any day of the week, I'll take a candidate who raises fees and ends government subsidization of services below market value, rather than raising income taxes in a socialistic fashion.

Rudy continues to try and muddy the water on his fiscal record.

1. Rudy left the city with a $2.7 billion greater single-year budget shortfall than he found it ($1 billion if you don't count 9/11).

2. Rudy actually lowered taxes by $4.4 billion LESS than his campaign has claimed.

3. During the booming 1990's, Rudy borrowed an additional $16.4 billion on city debt, costing New Yorkers over a billion dollars more than their tax cuts to just pay the interest.

http://www.mymanmitt.com/mitt-romney/2007/09/rudys-fiscal-record.asp

Posted by murphy | October 4, 2007 10:30 PM

Romney is right when he says fees should be paid by those utilizing the services and not the average taxpayer. Fees are not taxes. Over the course of his administration, without raising taxes or increasing debt, Romney balanced the state budget each year. The state had a $1 billion budget surplus in 2005 and new jobs in MA were up 60,000 from the low point by the end of his term.

Romney is also right that Giuiani will have a hard time inspiring the right-wing, religious base of the party to come to his aid. Romney's positions line up with the GOP base much more so than do Rudy's.

Posted by Kate | October 5, 2007 1:57 PM