Garamendi is Uninformed

By William L. Garvin

The recently published interview with John Garamendi exposed many reasons why he should not be reelected.  To begin with, “forty years of political experience” should be a disqualifier in and of itself.  Our founding fathers never envisioned “career politicians” whose primary goal would be to get reelected.  Many in Congress have been there far too long and many have outlived whatever usefulness, if any, they might have once had.

As is typical with politicians, Garamendi “cherry picked” data to support Obama’s contention that it is “indisputable” the economy is in recovery.  Even the frequently quoted, liberal website Wikipedia points out that Garamendi votes with Obama and Pelosi ninety-eight percent of the time.  That means “politics is the game and Big Government is my name.”  The proof is in the pudding when he cites the low number of unemployment applications but in the same breath laments “We have not seen the growth in the public sector.”

He goes on to say that it is “bizarre” when people complain 92 million Americans are “not participating in the workforce.”  All he has to do is go to his Department of Labor website to see how his own government derives that number.  It’s everyone sixteen years of age or older.  The number was only 80 million when Obama took office.  Furthermore, in 2007, 66% of Americans had jobs or were looking.  Today, the number is down to 62.8%, the lowest labor participation rate in forty years.  Particularly troubling is 24% of those in the 25-64 age group that are not working are not even looking for work!  Additionally, there are 7.8 million working who are “involuntary part time.”  That makes the underemployment rate (U-6) over 13%.  If you also factor in that 4 out of 5 new jobs being created are part time and minimum wage along with the fact that 46.5 million Americans (approximately 15%) are on food stamps along with the fact that household income has decreased $2,500 per annum, his claim of economic recovery is horribly out of touch.  That’s why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Dan Logue…not Garamendi!

Garamendi also blames the “majority in Congress” for not recklessly spending even more.  There is a Democrat President and a Democrat Senate but he still blames the Republican House for not passing a sequel to the trillion dollar failure known as the American Recovery Act.  He also forgets that sequestration was a White House proposal adopted by the Democrat Senate and signed by the Democrat President.  After six years, he still tries to blame current woes on George Bush and perpetuate the fallacy that Clinton left with a “surplus.”  Clinton never reduced the national debt a single year!  The Obama deficit may be somewhat reduced this year but it will still add $650 billion to the national debt which is now $17.9 trillion.  Over 40% of the national debt has occurred in the six years of the Obama administration.   Nonetheless, Garamendi voted against the balanced budget amendment and always votes to raise the debt limit in lockstep with Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Another questionable position is his continued support of Obamacare despite vociferous opposition by the majority of Americans.  He trumpets the “bending of the cost-curve on health care” while forgetting the Lie of the Year (“if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”) and that we were supposed to save $2,500 per year (another “Four Pinocchio” fabrication).  Additionally, even using Huffington Post numbers, his claim that Center for Disease Control budgets have been cut by a billion dollars a year for four years is highly inflated.  In fact, the CDC budget was increased for 2014 beyond what Obama had requested.  If no Ebola vaccine has been developed by CDC, maybe it’s because they were spending $2.9 million on figuring out why lesbians are obese, over two million more on getting old people to join choirs, another half million on why obese girls have a tough time getting dates, nearly a million on why gay men in Peru get syphilis, and $2.5 million developing “origami condoms”!

Both candidates are personable and well spoken.  However, Garamendi is a proven vote that Obama and Pelosi can count on and he has done nothing but support their out of control spending.   He has done nothing to get to the bottom of the numerous Obama administration scandals.  Logue has a much better understanding of the issues and the economics surrounding them.  I’d like to keep my doctor, keep my health plan, keep my country, and keep my sanity so I voted for Dan Logue. Unless you want two more years of the same liberal policy failures, you need to do the same!