Gardner wants to be voice for rural Colo.

Cory Gardner, Republican candidate for the 4th Congressional District seat now held by Betsy Markey, is the latest political candidate to speak at a Rotary Club meeting.
“What an opportunity we have in November of 2010, to get this country back on track, to start creating jobs and to be proud of the greatest nation on the face of this earth,” Gardner said at the meeting on Wednesday.
He talked about growing up working at Farmers Implement Co. Inc., his family’s farm equipment dealership in Yuma.
“I learned a lot at the implement dealership, about people’s business, people’s lives, what it is that makes them tick and what we need from a government,” Gardner said.
He also talked about needing to get out of the “dark” to get this country moving again.
“We need to make sure that we are once again confident that we can restore this country, economically, and the liberties this nation was founded on,” Gardner said.
He also talked about why he ran for state legislator, because he felt rural Colorado and agriculture didn’t have a strong enough voice in the legislature.
“The people weren’t represented in Denver the way they should be,” he said.
“I can see the same thing happening in Washington, D.C.,” Gardner said. “We’ve got to let people understand what it takes to run a business, to live in rural Colorado, to operate a farm or ranch, to have that water that we need that is truly the life blood of this state.”
He said this election really is “the most important election of our lifetime” because of all the challenges America is facing, including trillions of dollars worth of debt and a government that’s growing at breakneck pace. There needs to be less government and more fiscal responsibility, Gardner said.
“I strongly support a balanced budget amendment, so that we can make sure that Congress is balancing the budget,” he said.
Gardner talked about the PAYGO legislation, requiring Congress to pay for what they spend. He noted this Congress has violated PAYGO by more than $1 trillion.
“They pass a law to feel good and then they don’t enforce it,” he said.
In addition to reducing spending, Gardner said things like the death tax must go away.
He also talked about the healthcare bill and how the federal court is saying it’s legal because it’s a tax and the federal government has the right to tax the American people. However, early on in the healthcare debate it was said this isn’t a tax; no taxes will be increased on people earning less than $250,000.
“Yet, here we are with a healthcare field that will cost over $2 trillion to add to the nation’s debt and deficit,” Gardner said.
He also talked about how the healthcare bill is affecting his family’s company.
“If you look at how much money we are paying today for the Implement dealership for healthcare for our employees, five years ago, 10 years ago, versus today, those costs have gone up dramatically,” he said. “So we have to do something to make sure that health insurance is affordable for Americans.”
Gardner also talked about the cap and trade legislation and how REAs (Rural Electric Associations) have said that if you have a sprinkler, one meter of your sprinkler is going to cost about $1,700 more a year to operate, if this were to become law.
He also talked about the stimulus bill and how it has failed to get the country back on its feet, create jobs and reduce the level of unemployment like it was supposed.
“It succeeded to put this country further into debt,” Gardner said. “For people who are out there believing that the recession is over, its not true, because every single one of us knows that our businesses and our families continue to struggle to make ends meet.”
“That’s why this November we have got to work hard to elect people who will implement policies that will actually get this country moving again,” he said.
He talked about creating jobs with private businesses and creating manufacturing opportunities.
“We’ve seen an exodus of manufacturing over the past few decades from this country and we’ve got to get them back,” Gardner said. “We’ve seen some new companies coming into this country, Vestas and others that are creating jobs, but we’ve got to do better.”
He also talked about water issues, saying more water needs to be stored on the South Platte River.
“We have got to store more water up and down the South Platte River, so places like Sterling and Logan County can continue in viable farming and agriculture for generations to come,” Gardner said.
He also said NISP (Northern Integrated Supply Project), up near Fort Collins and Greeley, needs to be built “to make sure that we have the water storage necessary to keep the buy up and dry up of farms from destroying agriculture as we know it.”
He noted that at one point last year more than 4,000 CFS of water was flowing out of the South Platte River and into Nebraska that legally and rightfully belonged to the people of this state, to put toward a beneficial use.
“If we can put that water here, think what we can do in places like Morgan County, Weld County, Adams County,” Gardner said. “Where we can once again allow people to start using their water, to turn on their wells, and make sure that we have those opportunities to keep places like Sterling, Colorado, vibrant for generations to come.”
He also talked about education.
“As a state legislator, I’ve worked very hard to increase opportunities for rural education,” Gardner said. “I’ve fought against legislation that I felt would penalize rural schools; I’ve helped increase funding for rural schools.”
He talked about passing legislation allowing rural teachers to participate in loan forgiveness programs.
Gardner also said he has fought hard as a state legislator to empower school districts with the local control that they’re constitutionally entitled to.
“Taking that local control to the next level, I don’t think the federal government ought to be telling you how to run your school and what to do,” he said. “That is your choice, your communities, your school board, that is not the job of the federal government.”
Gardner also talked about immigration and the immigration law Arizona passed.
“Arizona was doing what they believed best for Arizona because of the failed federal policy,” he said.
Gardner said the first step with illegal immigration is to secure the borders.
“If we can’t secure the borders, then whatever immigration policies and choices we make they fail,” he said.
He also said existing laws need to be enforced and there needs to be an e-verify system that lets businesses know who is eligible for legal employment in this country.
Gardner also talked about the importance of creating renewable energy opportunities.
He talked about how he created the Colorado Clean Energy Authority, to bolster and boost the ability to attract investments in renewable energy in eastern Colorado.
“If we can do those kind of things then we can actually create economic opportunity in the state,” Gardner said.
“I am an ‘all of the above’ energy supporter,” he said “If we are going to grow our economy, if we are going to make sure that families continue to live affordably in the United States and Colorado, we have got to adopt an all of the above energy policy, and that means that we take a look at exploring for new avenues of traditional resources like natural gas, like oil, like coal.”
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