It’s His Party
We read Abel Maldonado’s latest opinion piece with a mixture of amusement and sadness. It appears that despite his 12 years in Sacramento and his close friendship with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Maldonado still does not know how our government works.
It’s Mr. Maldonado’s party, the Republican Party, that controls the House of Representatives and sets its agenda. And it is his party that decided to adjourn and leave Washington.
I suppose he could have brought up his great concern about why Republicans would cancel votes to House Speaker John Boehner when Mr. Boehner was here in town fundraising for him. But maybe they were too busy discussing how to mislead voters with false attacks on the hometown congresswoman. They have now run 12 misleading attack ads against Congresswoman Capps.
When the Republicans decided to leave Washington, they decided it was more important to campaign for their own jobs rather than help create jobs for Americans. Among a host of other issues, they left undone the President’s jobs bill, refused to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, let the Farm Bill expire (a 50 year first!), and made no progress to stop a tax increase on 98% of Americans and 97% of small business owners.
Let’s look at that last issue. We all know that getting our economy back on track is the most important issue facing our country. But not to the House Republicans, who are holding 98% of Americans hostage to a tax increase unless they get a tax cut for the wealthiest 2%.
Mr. Maldonado doesn’t object to the Republican proposal to increase taxes on the middle class unless the rich get their cut too. But it’s no surprise that Maldonado is willing to raise taxes on the middle class, because that’s what he did when he voted for the largest tax increase in California history in 2009. (We would be remiss if we didn’t point out that while he was sticking Californians with the largest state tax increase ever levied in our nation, he refused to pay his own $4.2 million in back taxes and received one of his 9 tax liens.)
This may also be a good time to mention that regardless of what voters feel about Mr. Maldonado as a candidate, this much is clear: A vote for Maldonado is a vote for continued Republican control of Congress, more dysfunction, and endless partisan gridlock.
It’s a vote for a Republican majority that proposes to end Medicare as we know it. It’s a vote to privatize Social Security. It’s a vote for the Republican budget that will cut Medicaid by a third, a program which provides most of the funding for nursing home care for Medicare seniors, and care to our most vulnerable citizens with disabilities.
A vote for Mr. Maldonado is a vote to defund Planned Parenthood and a vote to empower those who recklessly took our country to the brink of fiscal catastrophe by threatening to put the U.S. in default – and have vowed to do it again.
Quite simply, it’s a vote for policies that Lois Capps has been fighting against – on our behalf – for years.
As Mr. Maldonado suddenly pretends to be independent of these Washington, D.C., Republicans who are financing his campaign, his record tells another story. While he collected millions from his huge farm business, he opposed increases to the minimum wage and unemployment assistance for Californians. He voted against upholding Roe v. Wade. He opposed California’s landmark global warming bill. He not only opposes same-sex marriage, he even voted against granting domestic partnership rights for same-sex couples. And he even voted for Prop. 187, among the most divisive anti-immigration measures in our state’s history. We encourage voters to see the facts for themselves at www.wheresmaldo.com.
So we were not surprised that Mr. Maldonado now tried to mislead voters about why Congress isn’t working on our problems. Let’s remember: He has been misleading voters about his positions on the issues, on Lois Capps’ record, and even his refusal to pay his own taxes.