Factchecking Jon Huntsman

By Shira Schoenberg, Globe Correspondent

The day Republican Jon Huntsman announced his candidacy for president, Democrats tried to portray the former governor of Utah and President Obama’s former ambassador to China as a flip-flopper.

Florida Democrats made some of the same claims during a Huntsman visit last weekend.

It’s a strategy Democrats are likely to pursue as Huntsman continues his campaign.

We’ll take a look at some of the claims, starting with this multifaceted one:

“The Jon Huntsman I know supported President Obama’s Recovery Act, which Huntsman thought should have been larger. The Jon Huntsman I know worked with Democrats to pass a cap and trade program and said at the time that it was the only alternative to a carbon tax. The Jon Huntsman I know signed into law a health insurance exchange and proposed an individual mandate for Utah. But now that’s all changed. He claims to oppose the Recovery Act. He says he’s against cap and trade. He wants to repeal health insurance reform.” - Utah Democratic Party Chair Wayne Holland, June 20

The cap and trade claim is true.

As Utah governor in May 2007, Huntsman signed into law the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative, an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Utah committed to a cap-and-trade program, where carbon emissions were capped and businesses could buy rights to produce emissions.

“You have to value carbon if you’re going to take climate issues seriously,” Huntsman told the Salt Lake Tribune in November 2008. “That either supposes you’re going to have a carbon tax or you’re going to have a cap-and-trade program.”

This May, Huntsman said he had changed his mind on cap-and-trade as economic circumstances have changed.

“It hasn’t worked,” he told Time magazine, “and our economy’s in a different place than five years ago.” In a May interview with ABC, he said it is no longer possible to consider something like cap and trade that could hamper economic growth, and any policy on emissions must be done internationally.

The claim about the Recovery Act is not true.

Although Huntsman took stimulus money as Utah governor, he has consistently raised questions about the efficacy of Obama’s federal stimulus bill, saying its focus was misdirected.

In a 2009 interview with Politico, Huntsman did say the stimulus was not large enough to be effective. But in the same interview, he made the standard Republican argument that tax cuts would have more of an impact and that businesses, not government, would create jobs.

At a 2009 conference, Huntsman acknowledged that the stimulus helped Utah and some type of stimulus was needed. But he continued to criticize the implementation of the stimulus program nationally because it did not focus enough on infrastructure.

He also told an interviewer that he probably would not have voted for the Recovery Act, according to PolitiFact.com.

The claim on the individual health mandate is partially true.

As Utah governor, Huntsman considered health care reform that would have included an individual mandate. A mandate was included in early drafts of the reform, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Huntsman said in a 2007 interview with KUED-TV in Utah that he was “comfortable” with a mandate, and he told an interviewer for a documentary on Utah’s health care reform that a mandate “has to be part” of any serious attempt at reform – though potentially only for certain populations.

However, the final reform Huntsman signed into law has no mandate. Rather, it creates a health exchange, or insurance marketplace, and employers pay a defined amount toward a health plan chosen by the consumer.

The conservative Heritage Foundation said the Utah model empowers consumers “through conservative principles of free enterprise and consumerism.” Huntsman today says he did not push for a mandate, though he considered one.

Asked about it in New Hampshire, Huntsman said, “When you’re deliberating something as important as health care reform, you’re looking at every option. It would be a dereliction of duty not to.”