"California jobs gone and Barbara Boxer plays politics," the ad's narrator says as unemployment figures flicker on the screen. The ad cites criticism of Boxer by the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, which declined to endorse either candidate and said Californians deserve a senator "able to reach across party lines to achieve progress" adding that Boxer "falls short on those counts."
"When bickering ends, solutions begin. No partisan games," a smiling Fiorina says to the camera. "I'll reach across the aisle, work with others, oppose my party if needed. Your agenda. Not mine."
Fiorina has criticized spending increases under both Democrats & Republicans while praising bipartisan efforts to curb spending. She has also promised to work with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein to boost water deliveries to the Central Valley.
Boxer charged that Fiorina's stance on abortion is "'a direct threat' to the rights of women in California and the nation," the Los Angeles Times reports. Boxer said, "The most extreme anti-choice groups have found their candidate in Carly Fiorina." Fiorina, who opposes abortion except in the case of rape, incest or when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother, has said the allegation is a distortion of her position. She told reporters that her opponent was trying to shift voters' attention from more pressing concerns. Fiorina has not explained what actions, if any, she would take in Congress to restrict abortion if elected"
She called the February 2009 stimulus package a "failure'' and as proof cited the unemployment rate in San Bernardino County, which has increased from 11.7% when the stimulus legislation was approved to more than 14.2% in August.
To rescue the economy, Fiorina said Congress should extend the Bush-era tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, which she said gave much-needed tax relief to small and family-owned businesses. Those tax breaks are set to expire at year's end.
Fiorina dismissed Boxer's recent focus on gun control--including Fiorina's opposition to the 1994 assault weapons ban--as a "desperate attempt" to distract voters from the real issues that concern them, including the dismal economy and need for job creation. Fiorina sidestepped a question about her support for allowing people on the federal government's no-fly list to purchase firearms. "Barbara Boxer knows perfectly well the difference between the terrorist watch list and the no-fly list, and if she doesn't know the difference, then that's really a problem," Fiorina said. "It was Boxer who voted to give constitutional rights to terrorists. Boxer's record on national security is fairly weak."
Fiorina said they should: "The no-fly list has been, unfortunately, way too large, and I know people who have been on it who have been stopped and if we permit anyone who is on that no-fly list to have their 2nd Amendment rights taken away from them, that's a terrible problem," she said.
During a subsequent debate with Boxer in September in Moraga, Fiorina asserted that her sister-in-law, a friend's husband and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts had all been on the no-fly list, which she added "isn't particularly well managed."
But Fiorina was mistaken at least in part, according to a TSA myth-fact document: Kennedy was never on the no-fly list--but his name closely matched that of someone on the watch list.
Fiorina: Well first, I think that we must do as the government of Mexico asks us to do in terms of supporting them, and in some cases, we have not provided to them all of the support that they have asked for. But just to put this in context, I think what we're looking at here is the potential that Mexico is approaching a failed state. A "failed state" is when a government cannot control the security situation within its borders.
Q: So, what can we do about it?
Fiorina: I think we must provide to the government of Mexico all the support that they are asking for, and frankly, we have not yet done that. We haven't provided all the support.
Fiorina: We are falling behind in energy innovation. We spend less on energy Research & Development than many other nations in the world. We must be the leader in innovation, and we must be the leader in clean green technologies. And we are not on a path to do so, because our federal government doesn't spend as much on federally-funded energy R&D. Our R&D tax credit is now 17th in the world. However, the reason I believe AB 32 is a bad idea is because to deal with global warming requires a serious global solution. Scientists agree that a single state--or a single nation--acting alone can have no impact on global warming. I would immediately engage in serious bilateral discussions with China, a nation that uses more coal than we do, but also that researches more into clean coal.
Fiorina: Well certainly there are many reasons for a rational regulatory policy. But unfortunately we see too many cases where regulations have run amok, and they are costing us jobs. Let us just start with the most obvious example: that of water in our great Central Valley. In 2008, a nameless, faceless bureaucrat decided that the smelt was endangered. The remedy for this was to turn the water off flowing through the pumps in the delta, and with that decision, hundreds of thousands of acres lay fallow, tens of thousands of people at the height of it were out of work. Of course it is important to protect our environment, it is important to protect our fish and our flies and our frogs, all which are endangered in California, but it's important to protect our families as well.
Fiorina: When we have something like the Endangered Species Act--just one example--of course we need to protect our endangered species. But when, by statute, that law requires someone to disregard all social and economic impact; in other words, when the regulation says that we should protect species at any cost, and we are costing people jobs, which is what is happening today, then that would be an example of where I think common sense should, and compassion should prevail. And it's relevant, of course, because the Endangered Species Act has spawned many regulations in California, no pun intended, and it has made, for example, the building of new manufacturing facilities very difficult.
Fiorina reiterated her support for overturning the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, but said, "The most important issue right now in this election is the creation of jobs."
Fiorina said that the key to economic recovery was less government, taxation and regulation. She called for extending the Bush administration's tax cuts, saying that their expiration would further harm the struggling economy, and expressed support for repealing the estate tax and creating additional tax break for small businesses. "To create jobs, we need to make sure in particular our small businesses, our family-owned businesses, our innovators and our entrepreneurs are freed from strangling regulation and freed from taxation," Fiorina said.
Boxer said homosexual couples would gain full equality only when same-sex marriage was recognized. "The only way to get the rights that married couples have is to go for marriage equality," she said. "I believe people are coming around to see it."
But Fiorina declined to take a position on Proposition 23, the November ballot measure that would suspend California's landmark global warming law until unemployment drops to 5.5% or lower for four consecutive quarters.
Boxer seized on her opponent's reticence: "If you can't take a stand on Prop. 23 I don't know what you will take a stand on," Boxer said. "I want those [clean energy] jobs created here in America."
Boxer countered that such bans have kept people safe. "To go back to that dangerous yesterday makes no sense," she said. "It has bipartisan support."
CAMPBELL: Silent slander stops today. Carly Fiorina's lead campaign consultant slandered me by calling me an anti-Semite. When I was running for the US Senate in 2000, Sammy Al Arian helped me. I note that he also helped George W. Bush who was running for President. I do not think that I deserve the kind of attack however that has been launched that somehow I am jihadist.
FIORINA: Unlike Tom Campbell George W. Bush gave back the campaign contribution. Tom Campbell refused to do so. Also the views of the Professor that he mentioned were well known and aired on Bill O'Reilly prior to his being fired. I do not believe you are an anti Semite. Marty Wilson tells me he never made that comment, but I do believe this--Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East, they have made great sacrifices for peace there faced with an existential threat, and CA voters need to know our views.
FIORINA: Common sense says that if something's not broken you don't fix it. I don't think Guantanamo Bay is broken. I think it works just fine. For those who say Guantanamo Bay is a recruiting tool for terrorists, even if we close Guantanamo Bay, those who intend to harm us will come up with another recruiting tool. Guantanamo should be the place where enemy combatants are tried in military tribunals and held. I do not believe that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or the Christmas Day bomber have earned the right of American citizens. I do not think they have eared the assumption of innocence particularly when they have confessed to these acts, in some cases in chilling detail. I do not believe we should be trying in civilian courts. I do not believe American taxpayer money should be layering them up. I believe they should be tried, and if possible, executed in military tribunals or held in Guantanamo Bay
FIORINA: The tax burden is already too high. The tax burden must be cut, must be lowered. That is the only way we can get our economy growing again by creating jobs, and that means cutting taxes and w must actually cut federal spending. Now, once again, this is an area where Tom Campbell and I apparently disagree fundamentally. In 1989, when he was a congressman, he proposed a gas tax increase in congress. In 1997, he was the only Republican to vote against tax cuts. Last year, he proposed a $16 billion tax increase for California. He has said that he wants to increase the gasoline tax by 32 cents a gallon to close the California budget deficit. We already have the highest gas tax in the nation at 65 cents.
CAMPBELL: That's absolute inaccurate. The NTU in the 102nd Congress rated me #1 most fiscally responsible based on the amount of net cuts that I co-sponsored. I have never proposed that taxes be increased to close the federal budget.
CAMPBELL: The reason is clear because, for example, suppose there is another airline crisis involving security and in order to beef up security we need to put a tax on airline tickets. Are you going to vote no if that money? Would you vote no on a special tax on airline tickets to beef up security on airlines?
FIORINA: I would, yes, and the reason I would vote no is because there is absolutely no reason that our federal government, which is now $12.5 trillion in debt, cannot trim spending from the waste bloat that sits in the federal government bureaucracy to deal with its most important priority, which is to protect the men and women of this country.
Q: Concluding remarks?
FIORINA: I will fight for every job; I will vote against every tax increase; I will champion reduced regulation, lower taxes and lower government spending. We must take our government back and make it work.
CAMPBELL: So did you. Carly, uou were in favor of Internet taxes.
FIORINA: No, Tom, I've been leading the charge as a technology executive against internet taxes.
CAMPBELL: I've got the Sa Jose Mercury News article where you said the industry can no longer continue free from taxation. Furthermore, it's not internet taxes, it's allowing taxation to be equal between brick and mortar and between internet sales. Treat them equally, that's all I've ever said.
FIORINA: You know, one of the things that was going on, I've been a technology executive. I chaired the technology policy institute, and taxation on the internet would be disastrous. People like Tom Campbell were sitting in congress advocating for taxation on the internet. Even Barbara Boxer was right on this issue. The reality is that the only candidate in this primary who supports internet taxation is Tom Campbell.
FIORINA: I certainly agree that we need to be extremely concerned about Iran and I believe that we have lost a year to President Obama's failed engagement policy. The time has come for us to impose crippling sanctions unilaterally if necessary. We should be cutting off all access for Iran's leaders and for the Iran Revolutionary guard core to financial institutions to credit, to travel. We should be limiting Iran's imports for fined petroleum. And we should also stand very firmly with the brave men and women in Iran who are challenging the repressive Government and take advantage of the fact that there is a historic split in the theocracy in Iran--the first time in 25 years that that's happened.
FIORINA: HP has been in compliance with all US law. These accusations that we, that HP, did something unlawful are false. The real issue in Iran is how do we stop Iran's never-ending march towards a nuclear weapon? I believe we need to stop talking now and start acting. Congress should impose sanctions against shipment of refined petroleum into Iran.
Q: Chuck Devore, your campaign was the first to bring this to light?
DEVORE: We are not talking about simply compliance with obscure export controls. Carly Fiorina as CEO of HP could have severed relationship with Redington Gulf [the HP intermediary shipping to Iran], as HP has done in the early part of 2009 after a very damaging article came out in the Boston Globe. When she calls for sanctions against Iran, which certainly we can agree with, the hypocritical thing is that she participated as a CEO in undermining those very sanctions.
FIORINA: The peace process ultimately must include a two-state solution. However, I do not support the notion that Jerusalem should be a divided capital Tom Campbell apparently does.
CAMPBELL: No, that's not true.
FIORINA: Well, you were one of only 34 people in the entire House of Representatives in 1990 to vote against Jerusalem being the undivided capital of Israel.
CAMPBELL: The motion was a political maneuver to embarrass President George H. W. Bush.
FIORINA: That's a really interesting, and frankly intellectually contorted explanation. The reality is, 33 other congress people agreed with you, everyone else disagreed. The vast majority of Congress people were not embarrassed by this supposedly diplomatic maneuver.
CAMPBELL: The Prime Minister of Israel at the time was prepared to discuss a solution that involved as shared capital in Jerusalem.
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The above quotations are from 2010 California Senate Debates.
Click here for other excerpts from 2010 California Senate Debates. Click here for other excerpts by Carly Fiorina. Click here for a profile of Carly Fiorina.
Carly Fiorina on other issues: |
Abortion
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Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families Foreign Policy Free Trade
Govt. Reform
| Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Jobs Principles Social Security Tax Reform Technology War/Peace Welfare
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