You would never guess that US Senate Candidate Carly Fiorina was just released from the hospital. Before a crowd estimated at 600 concerned voters at the Laguna Woods Republican club she took the stage and spoke for 33 minutes without any notes or the use of a TelePrompTer.
In her half hour speech Carly covered a wide spectrum of topics beginning with her living the American dream. She addressed job creation, taxes, our national debt, small and family businesses, the death tax, government spending and accountability to explaining the decision to move Hewlett Packard’s manufacturing to Texas.
The attendees applauded after many of her candid remarks.
Carly opened her presentation sharing her American success story from her roots leaving Ithaca New York with her parents, older sister and younger brother. She told us she knew nothing about California saying it “seemed like a foreign Country.” She related her surprise finding oranges growing on trees by her driveway in the month of January. I can relate to that transition as the average high for Ithaca in January is 32 degrees.
Mrs. Fiorina said her parents taught her that America is a great nation. That “success is measured on the inside, not the outside” adding that “success is about the kind of difference you make in the world. Make the most of what God has given you is what life is all about.”
To cover some of her expenses while attending Stanford University she “got a job as a Kelly girl.” She added that “one of her first jobs was to type in the shipping department of Hewlett Packard on a technology breakthrough IBM selectric typewriter.” She joked about using small bottles of white out to correct mistakes as they had multi part forms.
Having earned a degree in Medieval History and Philosophy she found herself “all dressed up and no where to go.” She joined UCLA law school but hated it and quit.
She told us that “I’ve traveled all over the world. This country is the only place on earth where a woman can start like me and have the privilege to run the largest technology company in the world and the privilege to run for U.S. Senate.”
During her presentation she mentioned meeting a woman in Pleasanton, CA. this past April who approached her stating “I have never voted before but I am voting for you.” The woman expressed her concern for the future and its impact on her children. The woman told Carly “when you go to Washington do not forget about us.”
Carly said that “California’s unemployment is 12.4% unemployment rate, the highest unemployment rate in 70 years. We have 20 counties with unemployment above 15 percent.”
It is because we are CRUSHING small businesses, family owned businesses, businesses of all kinds with too much taxation, too much regulation, too much uncertainty. Businesses and jobs get destroyed every day.
We just lost 63,500 more jobs last month alone. While all this is going on Washington, D.C. has added 100,000 new federal government bureaucrats in the past 12 months.”
“While all this is going on our debt has grown from $10.7 trillion two years ago to $13 trillion today. Every man woman and child in America today owes $43,000.”
At this point she shifted her comments to focus on Barbara Boxer.
Barbara Boxer has been in Washington, D.C. for 28 years and in that time what has she done?
She voted for trillions of dollars in tax increases.
She voted to slash hundreds of billions from Medicare.
She voted for the health care bill that slashed $500 billion.
$136 billion is now being taken away from Medicare Advantage.
Barbara Boxer opposed the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts which are expected to expire on January 1st.
Every income family in California will pay $1600 more on average in tax starting January 1.
Every family owned business (faces a) 55 percent death tax and we have hundreds and thousands of family owned businesses in this state.
Every small business owner faces a tax increase
Boxer has voted against increase spending for our military. She voted against the supplemental appropriations
Barbara Boxer is one of the most liberal, one of the most partisan members of the U.S. Senate.
“Small businesses create two-thirds of the new jobs and employ half of the people. They give people their start in life. Let’s give every small business owner a two year tax holiday for every unemployed worker they can rehire.”
As to water and the delta.
Get the water turned back on in our central valley. Senator Feinstein knows that water is a critical issue and do you know who is standing in the way?
Senator Barbara Boxer, not once or twice but three times.
The first thing I would do is to go to the office of Senator Feinstein and say its you and I, a Democrat and a Republican, working together to get this water turned back on.
“To get people back to work let us rebuild the manufacturing base in this country.
The Californian Manufacturing and Technology Association endorsed me, their first endorsement in 92 years.
Barbara Boxer has been terrible for manufacturing. The tax rate in this country is 35 percent on manufacturers, the average in the rest of the world is 18 percent.”
She proceeded to discuss the acquisition of Compaq whose manufacturing was based in Texas. She told us that “she had a decision to make. We had a factory in CA and a factory in Texas and we wanted to consolidate, we needed to consolidate. I received phone calls from Senators in Texas, Congress people in Texas. They all said the same thing. Tell us what it will take to grow your employees here in Houston, Texas. They did everything possible to make my decision to move to Texas as easy as possible.
Do you know how many telephone calls I got from people who represent the state of California? None.”
We have to fight for our jobs in this state and in our nation.
Let’s give new companies a five year tax holiday to encourage new companies in California. We need to reward companies. Our R & D tax credit is 17th in the world. When we are spending so much less money than other nations in the world we will not stay ahead, we will start to fall behind.
Let the private (sector) do what it does best and that is to create jobs.
She went on to point out that we need to get government spending under control. The federal government has been growing every year for the past 60 years.
Mrs. Fiorina shared her procurement oversight experience as a 32 year old working at AT&T. She was asked to manage a group of engineers to look for cost savings. At that time AT&T was purchasing $2.5 billion worth of technology. She said she was intimidated and didn’t know anything about engineering. After 18 months she had 90 people working for her as they discovered $300 million dollars of mistakes.
Carly proposed putting every (federal) budget on the Internet where every taxpayer can see its cost estimate. She made the same suggestion for every Bill where every voter can see it before it’s voted on.
She said “let’s ban earmarks once and for all.”
She also suggested “a federal spending cap. There is a bipartisan Bill sitting on the floor of the U.S. Senate today. McCaskill, Sessions Bill,” a Democrat and Republican “calls for a federal spending cap that is pretty modest actually. 1.6% over 2010 level. I think its too modest but its a start. We failed by one vote. Guess who, Barbara Boxer four times.”
Let’s have every Agency accountable as to how they spend money.
She reported that we have “a lack of accountability” inside Congress.
After her presentation, and personally thanking many of the attendees, she did take questions from members of the media.
Note: Arriving early I did see a few members of the Laguna Woods Democratic club passing out flyers to anyone willing to take one.
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