By Bret Hayworth, For The Globe Gazette

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in a Sioux City stop Wednesday touted adoption of a national consumption tax to remove the shackles of a burdensome federal tax code.

As he encouraged support of his candidacy in the Aug. 11 Republican Party straw poll in Ames, Huckabee spoke primarily on the Fair Tax and the need to stand firm militarily against the “Islamic jihadists” whose “only goal is to establish their religious kingdom on earth.”

Without directly mentioning the war in Iraq, a conflict that polls show Americans want U.S. troops removed from, Huckabee said it is naive to believe “if we leave them (radical Islamists) alone, they will leave us alone.”

He added that terrorist attacks against the U.S. and in other Christian nations are “about fanaticism, and we have to understand that.” Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said in America “we elevate and celebrate life,” in contrast to the Islamic jihadists.

Huckabee said a national consumption/sales tax would remove the difficult chore of complying with a complex Internal Revenue System. The federal tax code, he said, is the fighting ground for 35,000 lobbyists, and has become a “nightmare.” Huckabee admitted his support of the Fair Tax, won’t make him “the favorite of the K-Street lobbyists, because the Fair Tax will put them out of work.”