On November 2nd, voters across Greater Arizona will cast their ballots to determine who will represent District One in Congress - Ann Kirkpatrick or Paul Gosar.
Unfortunately, Arizonans haven't had much of a chance to get to know Gosar - mainly by design. Paul has ducked debates and hidden himself in closed-door events with friendly crowds. Worse, he's been flip-flopping, mud-slinging to distract folks, and flat-out lying about his positions to hide where he really stands until after Election Day.
Gosar's campaign motto seems to be "what you don't know can't hurt you," and he's worked hard to try to keep Greater Arizona voters in the dark about what he believes in. But folks here want to know where this candidate really stands on the issues that matter to them - so to serve the district, we're providing a voter's guide to Paul Gosar.
Click here to download a printable PDF version of A Voter's Guide to Paul Gosar.
Paul Gosar on Social Security:
Paul has questioned the very constitutionality of Social Security.[i.] His original budget plan cut $73 billion in Social Security benefits[ii] - and when he flip-flopped after being criticized for his position, his new proposal actually slashed $169 billion.[iii] He's even suggested that seniors should just work until they die so they won't burden Social
Security.[iv] Independent fact-checkers have refuted his claims that his across-the-board cuts wouldn't affect Social Security.[v]
Americans for Prosperity[vi] and the 60 Plus Association,[vii] corporate special interest groups that support privatizing Social Security and handing it over to Wall Street, are spending $1,020,000 to get Paul elected[viii] – 60 Plus even gave Gosar their "Guardian of Seniors' Rights" Award.[ix] FreedomWorks,[x] whose chairman has accused Republicans who do not support privatization of lacking courage,[xi] is raising money for him.
Paul Gosar on Outsourcing:
Paul signed a pledge requiring him to vote to preserve tax loopholes for Wall Street corporations shipping American jobs overseas,[xii] and he's refused to back down from it.
David Koch, the New York City billionaire whose "Americans for Prosperity" group has spent $659,000 to get Gosar elected, once received an "outstanding excellence" award for his work in shipping jobs overseas.[xiii] Paul is being supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose president had the nerve to claim that outsourcing creates jobs[xiv] and has vowed to fight any attempts by the U.S. government to restrict outsourcing.[xv]
Paul Gosar on Corporate Special Interest Influence on Elections:
Special interest groups that support privatizing Social Security and corporate outsourcing are devoting more than $1 million to get Paul Gosar elected to Congress[xvi] – he's only spent one dollar on advertising for every six they're spending for him.[xvii]
Paul is openly supporting the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision,[xviii] which has allowed unprecedented amounts of untraceable spending by corporate special interests in this election cycle. Because of this ruling, Wall Street has been able to pour an unlimited amount of money into influencing elections without having to let the voters know where the funds are coming from - buying seats in Congress without having to let anyone know they're doing it.
Paul Gosar on Debating the Issues:
Paul has been dodging debates since he won his party's nomination. He never responded to Ann's proposal for five debates, four in communities around the district,[xix] and he turned down multiple requests by neutral third-party organizations to debate.[xx] He even pulled out of the only debate he agreed to just days beforehand, citing a scheduling conflict - which turned out to be sipping from a $200 bottle of French wine with big donors.[xxi]
He and his staff have made multiple excuses for his refusal to debate, claiming it would be "hours wasted of driving,"[xxii] insisting that the debate be in the district with folks in the district asking questions[xxiii] and then turning down a debate with that exact format,[xxiv] and complaining that "we don't need to debate" in the "isolated" communities of District One.[xxv] Folks across the district haven't bought it, and with each new excuse more and more people have become convinced that Paul Gosar is trying to hide his out-of-touch views.
Paul Gosar on the Minimum Wage:
Even as he runs for office in a district where folks are already making just $630 a week, Paul Gosar has expressed serious doubts about the minimum wage - saying he's "not a big fan" and that "in some aspects it actually hurts the competitive marketplace."[xxvi] He has never explained how he believes he is serving this district well by suggesting that people here should actually be paid less.
Paul Gosar on Taxes:
While Paul has promised to minimize the tax burden, the actual policy positions he's taken don't match up with his rhetoric. He has attacked Ann for her support for the Recovery Act, which included the largest middle-class tax cut in history.[xxvii]
Even worse, Gosar is supporting a national sales tax that would shift the burden to our middle class families.[xxviii] Arizonans would pay 23% more for necessities like food, gas and prescription drugs, with some working families seeing a tax hike of over $6,000 a year[xxix] - while millionaires like him would actually be able to keep more money in their bank accounts.
Paul Gosar on Tax Dodging:
Of course, this isn't the first time Gosar has tried to pay less in taxes. Despite the fact that he's a millionaire, Paul has been persistently and inexcusably late paying his property taxes - he had to be chased down 12 times, eight years in a row and as recently as this year.[xxx] He's failed to offer a reasonable explanation for why he clearly thinks the rules don't apply to him[xxxi] – disturbing behavior from someone who wants to be a Member of Congress and who has emphasized personal accountability and personal responsibility.
Paul Gosar on Education:
Right now, it's more important than ever that our kids get a 21st-century education to succeed in the global economy. Yet Gosar has made it clear he wants to shut down the Department of Education.[xxxii] Arizona’s education system is already operating on a shoe-string budget, and this would force cuts of $1 billion more[xxxiii] – it would be devastating for our kids.
District One would be hit hard particularly hard. Gosar's proposal guts the programs that help the many Greater Arizona schools that are surrounded by public land make up for the lack of property tax-based funds available, most notably schools on tribal lands. Our children would also have a much tougher time going to college without Pell Grants or other student loan programs.
Paul Gosar on Veterans:
Unlike Ann, who has been endorsed by national Veterans' groups and was given the best possible marks by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America for her work on behalf of our fighting men and women,[xxxiv] Paul Gosar has demonstrated a noticeable lack of commitment to Veterans. He has offered them few detailed proposals and even less attention.[xxxv]
Alarmingly, Paul has gone as far as proposing a cut to their benefits. His original budget plan eliminated $4.8 billion from Veterans health care[xxxvi] - and when he flip-flopped after being criticized for his position, his new plan actually cuts Veterans health by $17.6 billion, slashing it by well over one-third.[xxxvii]
Paul Gosar on Medicare:
Paul has parroted attacks by the 60 Plus Association that accuse Ann of supporting $500 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next ten years - a claim that the Arizona Republic has called very misleading.[xxxviii]
What Gosar doesn't talk about much is that his own new budget plan cuts Medicare by $98 billion a year - more than 20 percent.[xxxix] Worse, Gosar has questioned the constitutionality of the program itself,[xl] making his choice to attack Ann over it somewhat bizarre.
Paul Gosar on Health Care Reform:
Paul supports repealing the new health reform law and handing power back to the health insurance companies to abuse their customers.[xli] He wants to abandon the key new protections for working families, such as stopping the insurance industry from denying children coverage based on pre-existing conditions or dropping folks from their plans when they get sick.[xlii]
He also wants to roll back the progress that Ann helped make by reauthorizing and improving the Indian Health Service, a critical effort for Greater Arizona's tribal communities that had been stalled for more than 10 years.[xliii]
Paul Gosar on the Recovery Act:
Paul Gosar has repeatedly and viciously attacked Ann Kirkpatrick for her support for the Recovery Act. He has never offered an alternative plan that would achieve all that law did - such as keeping teachers in the classroom and law enforcement on duty[xliv] and providing the largest middle-class tax cut in history.[xlv]
Paul Gosar on the Border and Immigration:
Most of Paul's attention to border and immigration issues has been focused on distorting Ann's record of real progress towards border security - he has ignored her success in securing 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, putting more drones in the air, strengthening efforts to deport felons[xlvi] and successfully pressuring the Administration into deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border.[xlvii]
His own immigration position is still unclear - despite the bluster, he has refused to answer questions about how to address the illegal immigrants already in this country.[xlviii]
Paul Gosar on the 17th Amendment:
Paul Gosar has expressed his opposition to the 17th Amendment[xlix] – he feels things worked better before the voters had the right to elect our U.S. Senators, and he wants to take that right away from us and give the power back to the party bosses in the state legislature and their lobbyist friends.
Paul Gosar on Afghanistan:
Paul Gosar's website manages just 35 words to express his ideas, knowledge, and concern about military and Veterans issues,[l] and he has repeatedly failed to give any sort of real answer about his approach to the war in Afghanistan.[li] His response has been that he does not know enough to take a position:
"I’ve never been in the military, I don’t understand a lot about that."[lii]
"I have not been in the military, so I don't know."[liii]
“I have not served in the military, and I want to know from the military, which we never get, the information that is required to make us win.”[liv]
That's not nearly enough for someone who will be making decisions about funding our troops, and it's unacceptable to our young men and women in the field and their families.
Paul Gosar on Serving Tribal Communities:
Paul had repeatedly showed that he does not understand or care about the challenges facing Indian Country.
Despite the painful legacy of uranium mining for Native American families, Paul Gosar has refused to commit to ending this practice[lv] - either on tribal lands or on the Grand Canyon.
His new budget plan would cut more than 17% percent of funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, including more than 40% of their law enforcement efforts at a time when the Mexican drug cartels are posing a growing threat[lvi] on tribal lands in District One.
Perhaps worst of all, he supports reversing all that Ann helped accomplish with the reauthorization and improvement of the Indian Health Service.[lvii] This badly-needed step had been stalled for more than a decade, and Ann worked tirelessly to push it through. Paul wants to repeal this success and cut IHS's budget by almost a third - eliminating almost than $1.4 billion in funding.[lviii]
Paul Gosar on Critical Infrastructure:
Despite the critical infrastructure needs of this district, Paul Gosar has pledged not to make any appropriations requests on behalf of Greater Arizona.[lix]
This will allow funding for critical projects that can help create jobs, develop our economy in the long run, improve critical services and increase public safety to go to Maricopa County, California or Texas instead of District One.
He has criticized Ann for her efforts to make progress for rural Arizona, such as her work to support the Rio de Flag flood control project to protect Flagstaff against devastating and destructive flooding and her push to help modernize the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office's radio communication system. He doesn't seem to understand the costs of inaction.
Click here to download a printable PDF version of A Voter's Guide to Paul Gosar.
[ii] Yavapai Candidates Forum, 7/27/10; Arizona Daily Sun 9/19/10
[iii] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/15/10
[iv] Yavapai Tea Party Forum, 10/2/10
[ix] Gosar E-Mail, 10/21
[xii] Americans for Tax Reform “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”
[xiv] News India, 4/30/04
[xv] Agence France Presse, 4/14/04
[xviii] Yavapai Candidates Forum, 7/27/10
[xix] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/20/10
[xx] Kirkpatrick for Arizona, 10/23/10
[xxi] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/20/10
[xxii] Arizona Daily Sun, 10/20/10
[xxiii] Mitch and Joe Show, 10/12/10
[xxiv] Kirkpatrick for Arizona, 10/20/10
[xxvii] Huffington Post, 2/12/09
[xxviii] Center for Arizona Policy Survey (PDF)
[xxix] President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform Report (PDF), 11/1/05
[xxxii] Arizona Daily Sun 9/19/10
[xxxiii] Arizona Department of Education
[xxxv] Gosar Website, accessed 10/27/10
[xxxvi] Arizona Daily Sun 9/19/10
[xxxvii] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/15/10
[xxxviii] AZ Fact Check, 10/11/10
[xxxix] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/15/10
[xli] Mitch and Joe Show, 10/12/10
[xlii] New York Times, 9/22/10
[xliii] Navajo-Hopi Observer, 3/30/10
[xliv] AP, 10/12/09, CNN, 7/28/09
[xlv] Huffington Post, 2/12/09
[xlvi] Arizona Republic – AZ/DC Blog, 6/16/09
[xlvii] Homeland Security Today, 5/26/10
[xlviii] Arizona Daily Sun, 9/19/10
[xlix] Flagstaff Tea Party, 7/13/10
[li] Gosar for Congress: Winning the War on Terror
[lii] Flagstaff Tea Party, 7/15/10
[liii] Holbrook Unity Rally, 7/26/10
[liv] Arizona Daily Sun, 9/19/10
[lv] Arizona Daily Sun, 9/19/10
[lvi] Prescott Daily Courier, 10/15/10
[lvii] Mitch and Joe Show, 10/12/10
