CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part One)
CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part Two)
CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part Three)
CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part Four)
CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part Five)
CA District 7 Debate - Oct 12, 2010 (Part Six)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Arrogance Runs Rampant at CA District 7 Debate!
On Thursday Oct 14th I attended the California district 7 congressional debate between incumbent George Miller (D-CA) and challenger Rick Tubbs (R-CA). Overall I think it was a great idea to sit down and exchange ideas about what is happening in our country and how we can fix it. I was excited to see such a spirited debate, but only for the first 10 minutes or so. My excitement soon faded when incumbant George Miller began to actually lie to his constituents in the hopes that they are blissfully ignorant of what is really happening in the political landscape.
Before going into the specifics of the debate, I would like to get the generalities out of the way from the substance that was argued at this debate. On the war in Afghanistan, Miller supports cutting funds and withdrawling while Tubbs would not cut funds to the troops but does want to find a better method of finishing the war. On Obamacare, Miller said that he is for it but that we didn't do enough. He says that we should have had a single payer, universal system. Tubbs said that he would repeal the current healthcare legislation and work to replace it with common sense solutions that involved private enterprise rather than government. He also believes that the legislation did nothing to reform healthcare itself (nothing in it brings down the cost of the care itself, the bill only changes the operations of the insurance companies). On business and creating jobs, Miller believes that the stimulus bill is working and that we should be taxing the rich heavily while giving tax breaks to the middle class. Tubbs believes that the government needs to step out of the way of business, cut back on the amount of regulation (not all, but the wasteful ones) and let business' prosper. Both candidates were pro-union, and no social issues came up in the debate.
Now, back to my main concern! I was truly disgusted with George Millers ability to look his constituents in the eye and actually lie to them. Additionally, he must have thought that the American people are stupid, since some of his lies are basic knowledge.
When speaking about jobs being shipped overseas, Miller truly disgusted me. He spoke of legislation that is in place that would give a subsidy to business' that ship jobs overseas. Frankly, I'm not sure I believe such legislation exists simply because it would be political suicide for either party to pass a bill like that, but I will be checking into it. Congressman Miller then continued to say that they were trying to repeal this bill but the Republicans in congress blocked it. Mr. Tubbs was far to nice in his response and respectfully told Mr. Miller that the Democrat party has a majority in the House and the Senate. Personally I wouldn't have been so nice. My response would have gone something like this:
"Mr. Miller! Do you think these people are stupid? Do you think they are ignorant? I'm truly dissapointed that you would make assumptions like these about your constituents. These people are smart enough to see through your lies. I'm sure they all know that you have a 40+ seat majority in the house and a 7 seat majority in the senate. I'm sure they know that the Republicans could not block anything and that you could have passed or repealed any legislation you wanted in these past two years. And furthermore, I'm sure they know that they do not want to see a liar representing them in Washington."
Another area of contention I have with Congressman Miller was a comment he made during one of the questions about Mr. Tubbs' time in the military balancing budgets. In the midst of a question about fiscal responsibility Mr. Miller decided to take a stab at Mr. Tubbs and said, "I'd hope you can balance a military budget. God knows how much money we throw at it." Now, what I don't get is that Mr. Tubbs stayed on topic during his response and did not address that attack. Once again I would of handled it differently and it would have went something like this:
"Sure it's a large budget Mr. Miller. Defending this country is our first priority and I would expect military spending to be somewhat significant, but the fact of the matter is that I was able to balance my budget even though God knows how much money is thrown at it. Now Congressman Miller, your budget has infinetely more money thrown at it than mine. When do you plan on balancing your budget?"
Overall Congressman Miller was being dishonest and deceptive, but Mr. Tubbs was far to nice in his responses. These lies need to be called out, and in a way that gives him no response for his lack of integrity. I hope to see more of this on Tuesday when I attend Congressman Miller's town hall at Contra Costa College. I plan on asking him why he thinks it was a wise decision to end a session of Congress without addressing the Bush tax cut extensions, when business' don't even know what their tax liability is going to be 90 days from now. I wonder how he will try to spin that.
Additionally, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this, and obviously this is just my opinion on how the debate went, but to be objective, I will post the full video of the debate as soon as it becomes available.
Before going into the specifics of the debate, I would like to get the generalities out of the way from the substance that was argued at this debate. On the war in Afghanistan, Miller supports cutting funds and withdrawling while Tubbs would not cut funds to the troops but does want to find a better method of finishing the war. On Obamacare, Miller said that he is for it but that we didn't do enough. He says that we should have had a single payer, universal system. Tubbs said that he would repeal the current healthcare legislation and work to replace it with common sense solutions that involved private enterprise rather than government. He also believes that the legislation did nothing to reform healthcare itself (nothing in it brings down the cost of the care itself, the bill only changes the operations of the insurance companies). On business and creating jobs, Miller believes that the stimulus bill is working and that we should be taxing the rich heavily while giving tax breaks to the middle class. Tubbs believes that the government needs to step out of the way of business, cut back on the amount of regulation (not all, but the wasteful ones) and let business' prosper. Both candidates were pro-union, and no social issues came up in the debate.
Now, back to my main concern! I was truly disgusted with George Millers ability to look his constituents in the eye and actually lie to them. Additionally, he must have thought that the American people are stupid, since some of his lies are basic knowledge.
When speaking about jobs being shipped overseas, Miller truly disgusted me. He spoke of legislation that is in place that would give a subsidy to business' that ship jobs overseas. Frankly, I'm not sure I believe such legislation exists simply because it would be political suicide for either party to pass a bill like that, but I will be checking into it. Congressman Miller then continued to say that they were trying to repeal this bill but the Republicans in congress blocked it. Mr. Tubbs was far to nice in his response and respectfully told Mr. Miller that the Democrat party has a majority in the House and the Senate. Personally I wouldn't have been so nice. My response would have gone something like this:
"Mr. Miller! Do you think these people are stupid? Do you think they are ignorant? I'm truly dissapointed that you would make assumptions like these about your constituents. These people are smart enough to see through your lies. I'm sure they all know that you have a 40+ seat majority in the house and a 7 seat majority in the senate. I'm sure they know that the Republicans could not block anything and that you could have passed or repealed any legislation you wanted in these past two years. And furthermore, I'm sure they know that they do not want to see a liar representing them in Washington."
Another area of contention I have with Congressman Miller was a comment he made during one of the questions about Mr. Tubbs' time in the military balancing budgets. In the midst of a question about fiscal responsibility Mr. Miller decided to take a stab at Mr. Tubbs and said, "I'd hope you can balance a military budget. God knows how much money we throw at it." Now, what I don't get is that Mr. Tubbs stayed on topic during his response and did not address that attack. Once again I would of handled it differently and it would have went something like this:
"Sure it's a large budget Mr. Miller. Defending this country is our first priority and I would expect military spending to be somewhat significant, but the fact of the matter is that I was able to balance my budget even though God knows how much money is thrown at it. Now Congressman Miller, your budget has infinetely more money thrown at it than mine. When do you plan on balancing your budget?"
Overall Congressman Miller was being dishonest and deceptive, but Mr. Tubbs was far to nice in his responses. These lies need to be called out, and in a way that gives him no response for his lack of integrity. I hope to see more of this on Tuesday when I attend Congressman Miller's town hall at Contra Costa College. I plan on asking him why he thinks it was a wise decision to end a session of Congress without addressing the Bush tax cut extensions, when business' don't even know what their tax liability is going to be 90 days from now. I wonder how he will try to spin that.
Additionally, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this, and obviously this is just my opinion on how the debate went, but to be objective, I will post the full video of the debate as soon as it becomes available.
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