Did Barbara Boxer do any homework before her senatorial debate with Carly Fiorina on Wednesday? Boxer did hold her own and responded fairly well to most of Fiorina’s truth stretching assertions. But when her opponent is running on her record as a business leader, and that record earned her a place as one of the “20 Worst CEOs of all time,” the door was wide open for Boxer to clearly show what an abysmal leader Fiorina was.

Senator Boxer did take every opportunity to point out Fiorina’s woeful record on jobs, the one where she actually shipped 30,000 overseas. She even mentioned Fiorina’s very personal contribution to the American vernacular, coining the term “right-shoring,” a euphemism for firing Americans in order to send their jobs to a foreign land. Of course, Fiorina was laser focused on the “shoring” part but never really got it “right,” since as also pointed out by Boxer — Hewlett Packard lost more than 50% of its stock price under Fiorina’s control.

But Boxer missed the opportunity to elucidate how well aligned Ms. Fiorina is with the conservative extreme. She has spoken at Tea Party rallies and stated that she agrees with their views. She’s even a member of the tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves voodoo contingent of the Republican Party. Fiorina stated in a CBS interview that, “you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs.” Never mind that even conservative economists no longer support such nonsense.

For whatever reason, Boxer also failed to support her own record for voting in favor of the Stimulus, and allowed Fiorina’s statement that it had, “manifestly failed,” to stand. Without doubt one of the easiest assertions to refute, being that the Stimulus has been a huge success by every objective measure, nevertheless Fiorina’s fact-free spin went unchallenged.

Part of the problem was the format for the debate. It allowed for response and rebuttal but provided no means for redress of erroneous claims made during a rebuttal. Fiorina used this to her advantage by using rebuttal time to introduce new points when she had no real argument for the topic at hand.

Fiorina was allowed to characterize her support of the extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as good for the middle class. Boxer would have been well served to illuminate the fact that it’s Democrats who have drawn the line in the sand and support the extension for all but the top 2%. Fiorina used a similar tactic when speaking about the estate tax. Of course, she referenced it as the “death tax,” and drew alarm to the 55% rate. But where she really left the truth behind was in associating the tax with the 88,000 family farms in California. Boxer should have made sure that the facts of the matter were voiced, that the experts all agree that there’s not been a single “family farm” hit by the estate tax. She should also have added that the Democratic plan to deal with the expiring cut would lower the top rate to 45% and only apply to estates over $7 million, which would apply to .25 percent of estates.

Boxer also allowed Fiorina to demonize federal employees by associating the increase in their number with the loss of jobs in California. It would have been nice if Boxer had mentioned that the increase is almost entirely related to temporary census positions, which hit its 564,000 job high in May. Although Boxer did take advantage of the opening to hammer on Fiorina’s offshoring record one more time: she introduced Fiorina’s characterization of the recent aid bill to save teacher’s jobs as a “disgrace,” and added that Fiorina was likely opposed because, “we paid for it by stopping some tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas.”

Another well delivered blow by Boxer occurred in her rebuttal to Fiorina’s response to a question regarding the apparent conflict between her accepting a $21 million severance package and yet taking a strong position that teacher jobs should be tied to performance. Fiorina attempted to dodge the question by offering several statistics regarding HP’s growth under her tenure, failing to mention that the growth was the result of a failed merger. But Boxer responded with a body blow, stating that, “I think we are entitled to our opinion but we’re not entitled to our own facts. The facts are there was a $21 million severance check, and my understanding is that it was taken after my opponent was fired.”

But Fiorina scored points on Boxer’s legislative record. Citing the fact that only 4 bills bearing Boxer’s name have been signed into law, she asserted that Boxer was an ineffective legislator. Boxer did rebut by stating that the objective is not to get your name on legislation, and offered Senator Russ Feingold as an example, stating that the campaign finance legislation commonly known as McCain-Feingold does not bear his name. She didn’t mention that Feingold too only passed 4 bills during his tenure, or that the reason his name was missing was that it was the House version that was signed into law. The fact is that Boxer has a well-deserved reputation for carrying liberal causes as well as for working across the aisle. She needs to build a case that she can recite in a succinct manner.

As Boxer stated, Fiorina is the candidate of Big-Oil and Big-Coal. She danced around the topic of global warming, offering possibly the evening’s most twisted stretch of double-talk. According to Fiorina, the solution to global warming, “lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action.” So, evidently there’s really no reason for any entity to take a first step until we get everyone in line to make a change. Sounds like a good capitalist position — after all we can’t address the environment and be competitive with polluters like China at the same time.

In the end, it was likely more Fiorina’s exposing herself as a died-in-the-wool capitalist Republican that will sway more votes toward Boxer than anything else. It’s difficult to understand how a politician could think it advantageous to use China as an example of how to create jobs. But of course, it’s all a part of her one-trick-pony approach to all thing economic: cut taxes and regulations and all will be well — it’s the same prescription offered by all of her Republican cronies — a race to the bottom for American workers and the environment be damned.

---

In the nineteen months that President Obama has been in office, there’s no action that he’s taken, no policy that he’s supported that’s received more undeserved criticism than the federal stimulus. Consistently maligned by conservatives, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which passed the Congress with no Republican votes in the house and only 3 in the Senate, has significantly eased the impact of the Great Recession and continues to do so, while at the same time laying the foundation for a true 21^st Century America.

Intended to create jobs and promote investment and consumer spending during the recession, it’s difficult to reconcile Republican objections to the ARRA, better known as the Stimulus. After all, they had all supported the TARP bailout, which sent the better part of a trillion dollars to the nation’s richest banks. But the Republicans stood in unity against a stimulus directed at helping middle and working class Americans. Some say that the opposition was purely political, just one of many attempts to block actions that might help the economy and improve the standing of the Democratic leadership.

That may well be the case, as there have certainly been a record number of obstructionist actions taken by Senate Republicans since Obama took office. But whether or not the Republican disregard for common Americans is behind their original opposition, it seems clearly to be reflected in their conspicuous attempts to discredit the positive impact the Stimulus has had.

Most recently, while unveiling first looks at the Republican plan for the future, House Minority Leader, John Boehner said that the Stimulus, “has gotten us nowhere.” Oddly enough, he made that statement after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the stimulus had been released. The CBO analysis concurred with the majority view on nonpartisan economists and found that the stimulus had raised the GDP by 1.7% to 4.5% and increased the number of people employed by 1.4 to 3.3 million. The report also concluded that the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs had been raised by between 2 million and 4.8 million. The truth is that the facts don’t support the conservative spin, so the Republicans don’t offer any facts, just sound bites like John Boehner’s fallacious claim.

Few and far between are any economists who would even marginally agree with Congressman Boehner. There may be debate over the extent of the impact, but no reputable person would even attempt to argue that the Stimulus has “has gotten us nowhere.”  Mark Zandi, former economic advisor to John McCain, took issue with Boehner’s falsehood and stated that, “Without the stimulus spending, instead of a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, we’d have an 11.5 percent unemployment rate.” But of course, when people are still struggling in a stalled economy, it’s exceedingly difficult to sell the fact that it would have been so much worse.

Caring more about partisan politics than the health of the American economy or the wellbeing of the American people, Republicans have chosen to ignore the facts and rail on about how ineffective the Stimulus has been. The trouble is that, since they have no credible argument with which to discredit the macroeconomic effects of the program, such as the number of jobs created, they’ve been forced to try to put the spotlight on “waste.”

Reports of “wasteful projects” started the moment spending targets began to be identified. But the Republican spin machine hit a crescendo in early August when Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) released their report highlighting 100 projects they deem to be wasteful. Headlining their list is a $308 million contract the senators identify as being with oil giant BP. Of course, their report fails to mention that the money was actually given to Hydrogen Energy California, a BP subsidiary, in September 2009 — long before the oil spill. The report is also conveniently silent on the fact that the award actually went to a 50/50 joint venture, so BP isn’t even the primary awardee, and also that only $175 million of the total came from stimulus funds, while the private sector invested seven times as much money in the project as did government.

This is not to suggest that the Stimulus is without waste; any program with thousands of discrete expenditures totaling over $800 billion is going to incur some spending that could be considered wasteful. But does this justify raking through the contracts in an attempt to find anything and everything that can possibly be labeled waste? Does it justify using half-truths to cast expenditures in an illegitimate light?

The report tags the $71,623 awarded to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center as funding a study on, “Monkeys Getting High for Science.” The truth is that monkeys are being used, but the study is actually directed at research regarding cocaine addiction and relapse in humans. Along similar lines is the report’s characterization of $554,763 spent to replace windows at a Mount St. Helens visitor’s center as wasteful — because the facility “was closed in 2007.” Terrible, huh? . . . unless you consider that the Forest Service is performing the renovations in order to repurpose the center, so that they can, “protect the original investment and ensure continued good use of taxpayer dollars.” 

These are but a few examples of the distortions contained in the McCain/Coburn report. But whether or not you agree with Senator McCain that, “all of them are waste,” you still have to question his use of spin and what it says about his motives. This is especially true when, at the end of the day, even if you accept their entire list as “wasteful,” the $1.7 billion total is less than one-quarter of one percent of the total stimulus. This money is obviously nothing to sneeze at, but .002 waste is pretty damn good by any objective measure. The Pentagon, which David M. Walker, President of the conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former comptroller general of the U.S., identified as a system, “so fundamentally flawed that billions of dollars in waste is virtually guaranteed every year,” would have to completely reinvent itself to even approach such efficiency. Yet do you hear any Republican cries to cut defense?

The honest truth is that the ARRA could have been handled better. It does include some waste and should probably have been more focused on very specific job-creating investments. But to say that the stimulus, “has manifestly failed,” as Republican candidate for Senate, Carly Fiorina did during last night’s senatorial debate, is to take spin and wind it up to the level of outright falsehood.

The ARRA, originally estimated to cost $787 billion but recently revised at $814 billion, was essentially divided into thirds, with one part each allocated for tax relief, entitlements, and contracts/grants. The tax relief component, with $223 billion spent out of the $288 billion allocated, provided tax cuts for 95% of Americans and also included $51 billion in tax relief for business. Entitlements, funded at $224 billion with only $143 billion spent thus far, consisted mostly of aid to states in the form of $86.8 billion for Medicaid, $53.6 billion to help local school districts and prevent further layoffs, and $82.2 billion to assist low income workers, the elderly, and the unemployed.

While little of the expenditures in these categories went directly to create new jobs, the money did save thousands of people from joining the ranks of the unemployed. It also ensured that those most adversely affected by the recession received relief. And it accomplished these ends while also putting the majority of the funds where they would be immediate spent and returned into the economy. This factor ensured sustainment of consumer spending, which amounts to 70% of the economy, and created the largest stimulating effect possible.

The final portion of the Stimulus, that marked for contracts, grants and loans, is really the forward facing job creation engine of the program. The original intent of this spending was to identify “shovel-ready” projects where the money could be put to immediate use. But far too few projects of that kind were found, so at present only $139 billion of the $275 billion allocated has been spent. But even so, exciting progress has been made, and if people can remove their partisan lenses for just a moment, they will see that this program is building the foundation for a better government, a stronger America, and a brighter future for all Americans.

Recipients of funding through the direct investment part of the Stimulus had reported a total of nearly 750,000 jobs funded by the program through the end of this past June. But these jobs are really just the beginning. The program has made over 215,000 awards, but because of the time requirements to ramp up production, less than 40% of the award money has been disbursed. The real promise of these investments is still in the future, and it will come in the form new jobs, new industries and a transformation of government and certain sectors of American business.

Stimulus investments are focused in five critical areas: 1) to seed research and development, 2) to modernize transportation, 3) to jump start alternative energy, 4) to promote ground-breaking medical advancement, and 5) to establish a platform to enhance private sector infrastructure. Together, these areas represent a game plan for, not only moving our nation away from dependence on environmentally damaging foreign oil, but also for creating a new energy economy, building American capacity for the future and infusing existing industries with new technology.

One exciting example of how the Stimulus is paving the way to a prosperous green economy is the investment in advanced battery technology. Advanced batteries are critical to the deployment of alternative energy technologies from electric cars to smart grid-storage. Prior to the Stimulus, the U.S. produced only 2% of the world’s advanced batteries. But stimulus funding will create 30 new factories thereby increasing the U.S. share of battery production to 20% by 2012 and to 40% by 2015. Most of the associated projects are being seeded through grant money, like that awarded to A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass., who will be building two U.S. based factories with stimulus money. A123 is already a big player in the market, with 5 factories in China, but the Stimulus is moving them home. According to company CEO, Bart Riley, “Without government, there’s no way we would’ve done this in the U.S.” It should be noted that A123 held an IPO to raise the private capital that’s required to match public funding on all grant projects.

Carving a foothold for America in the growing market for advanced batteries is but one example of the Stimulus taking our nation where it needs to go. Funding has also been awarded to finance three of the world’s first electric-car plants, and because those cars will need charging, the Stimulus will also increase battery-charging stations by 3,200%. Other energy related projects include, $3.4 billion for clean coal, loan guarantees to facilitate the first new nuclear power plants in 30 years, and investment in wind and solar, including building the nation’s largest photovoltaic plant in Florida and the world’s two largest solar-thermal plants in Arizona and California. All together, $90 billion has been allocated to fund alternative energy infrastructure and efficiency — a fact that may provide a little more insight into Republican objections — since the Oil and Gas industry represents the only “Strongly Republican” lobby in Washington, sending 73% of their contributions to the right.

One signature project, also in the energy space but designed to address the nation’s woeful record on energy efficiency is the Weatherization Assistance Program. Most Americans know that the U.S. is the planet’s number one energy customer, actually consuming more than 20% of world supply. But much less widespread is the knowledge that over 57% of what’s consumed is actually wasted. With a goal to weatherize 600,000 homes, the weatherization program will begin to address this issue. The program has already completed 200,000 homes and continues to move forward at a rate of 25,000 homes per month and has created more than 13,000 jobs.

Energy is without doubt the center focus of stimulus spending, as it rightfully should be. Our nation’s ever-increasing dependence on foreign fossil fuels is amongst our most serious concerns in terms of national security, economic wellbeing, and environmental health. Energy independence should be a national priority, but the transition is extremely expensive, so market forces work against change and instead serve to preserve the status quo. The writing has been on the wall for more than 30 years, yet industry has moved forward at glacial pace. The sad truth being that it’s more profitable to continue to push fossil fuels. This is precisely the type of situation that demands government intervention — when the good of the nation is at conflict with the profit motive of business. The Stimulus is meeting this need and is on track to meet its goal of doubling alternative energy by 2012.

Rounding out other stimulus highlights are investment in transportation, healthcare, and infrastructure. One notable public transportation component is an $8 billion contribution for high-speed rail projects across the nation, including $2.3 billion for the system to connect the San Francisco Bay Area and Orange County. There’s also a $27.5 billion slice working to fund highway and bridge projects across the country. On the healthcare front is $20 billion to move health records into the digital age, an endeavor that constitutes real healthcare reform and promises to deliver both improved care and lowered costs. Other infrastructure investments include $7.2 billion to extend broadband access, much into rural areas, and also $11 billion for electrical grid improvements. The focus on a smart-grid is essential for maximizing energy efficiency, and both the broadband and grid improvements will lay the groundwork for trillions of dollars in future utility investments.

And not only is the Stimulus transforming America, but also the federal government. Unlike the Defense Department tradition of doling out contracts without bids, the Stimulus launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to ensure fierce competition for grant money. Modeled after DARPA, the Pentagon agency that gave us the Internet and GPS, ARPA-E recruited a host of outside experts to evaluate grant applications and winnow the 3,700 received down to the 37 awarded in the first round. Several of these grants will fund research that would otherwise be too expensive for profit-minded businesses, and if successful, the upside is absolutely immense. The intent is to create new industries, to solve longstanding problems, to reinvent the economy — these investments have the potential to create millions of jobs.

Anyone who really believes in America owes it to themselves to look deeper into the success and potential of the Stimulus. They should visit Recovery.gov and get more information. They should understand that this is the most transparent program ever instituted by the federal government, that all program details are readily available online, that program administration provides a 24-hour response to all state and local government queries, and that the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board was established to prevent fraud and waste. The Board gives citizens the ability to help police projects with several means to report suspicious activity, and has already helped to block some 260 projects for skate parks, picnic tables and highway beautification.

It’s difficult to understand the mindset that would hold the Stimulus program in a negative light. Detractors want to discredit the program with trumped up examples of waste. Deficit hawks want to derail progress by convincing the people we can’t afford the investment, when in truth they simply want to maintain the status quo. They know that our nation recovered easily from a debt that was 122% of GDP after World War 2, and that we currently sit at only 94%. But they also know that it was higher taxes on the most wealthy that funded the recovery and paved the way to a flourishing economy and a strong middle class. And this they will fight with every lie and distortion they cab muster.

The stimulus is exactly the prescription for America’s prosperous transition into the 21^st Century. Where better to spend American tax dollars than on the core needs and functions of our society, on our infrastructure, on healthcare, on education, on creating industries to fight energy dependence and create American exports? Are we better served with spending trillions on foreign wars, on maintaining a military presence to defend Europe and Japan? Perhaps the money should go to bigger bonuses on Wall Street or higher pay for CEOs? The answers are clear. The stimulus investments are our future. They are the path back to prosperity, to jobs, to the strengthening of the American middle class. The Stimulus program represents the way a government of the People, by the People, and for the People should act. 

The only real negative about the Stimulus is that President Obama listened to Tim Geithner and Larry Summers instead of Christina Romer. Had he taken her sage advice, the Stimulus would have been $1.4 trillion, and America would be that much closer to emerging from this greed-spawned recession into a bright and green future.

---

 

Long a bastion for Democratic voters, the Bay Area will carry the torch into the November election, hoping to put a democrat in the governor’s office and prevent Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat from falling into Republican hands. Carly Fiorina is threatening to give Boxer a serious challenge, but a video released on Sunday may help to tilt the scale.

The short video on YouTube, created by Brave New Films, shows Fiorina singing praises for the Tea Party and stating that she agrees with their views. Of course this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but in a state where 45% of registered voters who identify with a party are Democrats, and even the Republicans voters tend to be more moderate, strong Tea Party ties may not be advantageous.

A Rasmussen poll from July 14 shows Boxer maintaining a small lead at 49% support compared to Fiorina’s 42%. But a 7% lead does not a victory make, especially in a midterm election where conservatives are more motivated and likely to visit the polls. Barbara Boxer is counting on Democratic strongholds, like Contra Costa County where Democrats are a majority at 50.21% and nearly outnumber Republicans 2 to 1.

As evidenced by Fiorina’s support of the Tea Party, her politics are far from finding resonance with normal California attitudes. But these are not normal times, and Fiorina’s banter touting her business acumen and ability to balance budgets may fit well in the present economic climate. California is broke and struggling, and with unemployment currently at 12.3%, unsuspecting voters just might be swayed by Fiorina’s surface credentials.

But the surface is really all Carly Fiorina has. Even without looking at her Tea Party ties or her anti-abortion stance, a closer look at her business resume should leave any voter questioning both her abilities and her character. Fiorina acknowledges that jobs are a major issue for California, but when it comes to job creation, how much trust should voters place in a person who laid off over 30,000 workers and sent a massive number of jobs to China while heading HP?

Actually, the entire notion that Fiorina is a business professional who’s savvy and capable is suspect, to say the least. True, she was the CEO of HP, but during her tenure, not only was she the champion of hacking jobs, but she also presided over a 52% drop in stock price. In fact, Ms. Fiorina’s leadership record at HP was so abysmal that she was chosen as a member of the Conde Nast Portfolio magazine’s “20 Worst CEOs of all time.”

On the 20 Worst list, Fiorina joined the likes of Dick Fuld of Lehman Bros, Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, and Martin Sullivan of AIG, all of whom showed their abilities and character while driving the country to the brink of economic collapse. Other of Fiorina’s notable “20 Worst” alumnus include Ken Lay of Enron and Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom. The folk at Portfolio had this to say about Fiorina: “a consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.” Of course, Fiorina did receive a $40 million golden parachute to leave HP — a slightly better deal than that given the thousands of employees whose jobs she cut.

Fiorina really is a garden variety one-trick pony, typical of her conservative brethren. Regardless of the issue, she offers but one tack — cut. In business that meant jobs, which she so eloquently referred to as “right-shoring.” But in government, she’s already pulled out the conservative playbook; we can create jobs and restore vibrancy to the economy, all we have to do is hack spending and cut taxes.

And the really good news is that Fiorina agrees with other Republicans who recently informed us that we don’t need to pay for tax cuts. Yes sir, the deficit reins supreme, so spending must be offset, but Fiorina subscribes fully to the Republican gospel concerning the budget magic of tax cuts. Falling in behind Senators, Mitch McConnell and John Kyl, Fiorina stated in a CBS interview that, “you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs.” Of course, such myths have been soundly disproven and all empirical evidence is to the contrary, but what the heck — this is politics!

The plain truth is that Carly Fiorina was a terrible CEO and would make an even worse Senator. She cares not about jobs, at least not American jobs, as evidenced in a 2004 speech defending HP’s practice of off-shoring, where she told the crowd, “there is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” Which is true, but is it the ideology voters should value in an elected official?

In the end, voters will have to judge whether or not Fiorina is right for California, but when you add up her position to repeal healthcare, her denial that climate change is a serious national issue, her sitting out 15 of the last 23 elections, including the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and her position on abortion — and then couple them with her elitist attitude on jobs and her belief in voodoo tax cuts, it seems that Carly Fiorina is better suited to serving time in a mental institution than in the United States Senate.

---