How Would Marco Rubio Handle America"s Money? by Ray

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How Would Marco Rubio Handle America’s Money? by Ray

From the news desk of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Ray Mossholder and this Campaign 2016 with a question: How Would Marco Rubio Handle America’s Money?

One of those things that the national media seldom seems to mention is the handling of money problems that Marco Rubio has had to work out all his forty-four years. First, there’s the matter of the Republican Party credit card. Marco misspent a great deal of money from a hundred thousand dollars limit Republican Party credit card that he carried in his wallet. When asked about that during a Republican debate, his response sounded like Hillary Clinton would you about the Republicans. He said such claims were “discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents”. But are they? In this edition of Campaign 2016 we’re going to look to find out. I like Marco, but I want our next president to be honest, or as honest as possible, given the truth that everybody’s human – even presidents. (Even the statement attributed to George Washington – “I cannot tell a lie” is a lie!) And since the current president has spent more money than all other of our -three presidents COMBINED, and since the national debt is this minute more than 19 trillion dollars and keeps growing every second, knowing how to handle our nation’s finances is one of the absolute necessities for whoever becomes president next.

One thing the media in all forms does is take the kind of thing that I’m going to share with you now and hold it away from everyone until a party selects it’s official candidate – then all the scandals and damaging National Enquirer kind of news–mongering breaks out and the stories don’t even have to be true. It’s why you hear me say every once in awhile that most newspapers in America are not worth putting on the bottom of your birdcage. But, before all this is used to sink this candidates ship of state, let’s get the truth out now.

When Donald Trump said during one of the Republican debates that Marco Rubio is “a disaster with his credit cards”, the Donald wasn’t just whistling Dixie. Marco mixed his personal and business expenses during 2005 to 2008 on an American Express card. Under IRS rules, donations to political parties, which are tax exempt, can only go towards influencing elections.

Former Republican Party spokesman Katie Gordon explains “the card Marco Rubio was using is meant to be used for official business expenses only.” But Marco instead used the card for lavish dinners, repairs to his family minivan, and purchases from a wine store near his house. On the card was even a $6,773 charge for a family reunion in a Georgia resort.

When the Tampa Bay Times broke this story in 2010, Rubio countered with the statement “I was as diligent as possible to ensure the party did not pay for items that were unrelated to party business.” He said that he reviewed the credit card bill every month and paid for the expenses that he deemed personal. Marco told those who attended the family reunion that he was in trouble for the money he had used on the American Express card, and several members of the family sent checks that helped him cover most of the reunion expenses. The Republican Party still ended up paying $714 for the reunion.

During that time Rubio and his wife controlled two political committees that together collected $600,000. Again the Tampa paper pointed out that Rubio had failed to disclose $34,000 in expenses, that he paid family members for expenses that were incorrectly labeled, and that he spent very little on contributions to other candidates. Later it was discovered that as speaker in Florida, Rubio double billed the Republican Party and state taxpayers for eight airplane flights, which totaled about $2400. When the discrepancy was discovered and Rubio was contacted, he said it was a “mistake” and reimbursed the party.

In 2012, the Florida Commission on Ethics made a thorough investigation of Rubio’s use of his Florida GOP American Express card and finally cleared him of any wrongdoing. But one of the investigators noted that he still found Marco’s “negligence” in habitually being far less than careful with money that did not belong to him “disturbing”.

And we’re not done yet. Rubio actually owned two homes, and he had problems with both of them. In 2005, Mr. and Mrs. Rubio bought a home in West Miami for $550,000. An appraisal on the home was then valued at $735,000 – far above the purchase price. Close to a month later, the Rubio’s qualified for a $135,000 home-equity loan from U.S. Century Bank, a bank whose owner just happened to be a major Rubio supporter. In 2008, a Miami Herald reporter asked Marco why his home equity loan didn’t appear on his financial disclosure forms. Rubio quickly updated the forms.

Marco was a close friend of David Rivera, who was a Florida legislator. Together they bought a $135,000 home in Tallahassee, Florida, that they intended to live in during the Florida legislative session. The home came close to going into foreclosure during Rubio’s 2010 Senate race because they had failed to pay the mortgage for five months. Rivera settled the issue with a lump payment of $9,525. Both Rivera and Rubio claimed the delay had been made because of a disagreement they had had with the mortgage company.

Rivera and Rubio have parted company since Rivera was fined $58,000 in a Florida ethics investigation that Rubio was not involved in. They ended up selling the house they had purchased together. It sold for $117,000, which meant they lost $18,000 on the sale.

And we are not done yet. In September 2014, Marco sold six of his retirement funds for $68,000. The New York Times reported those sales most likely cost Rubio about $24,000 in taxes and penalties. But Rubio’s financial situation has improved in recent years, a lot of that having to do with the sale of the two books he’s written. He paid off his student loans shortly after becoming a senator with the money he earned from his book An American Son.

According to his financial disclosures, shortly after he was elected to the Florida Legislature in 2000, he had $150,000 in student loan debt and he owed $30,000 in other debts, which gave him a net worth of zero. But after writing his first book he was given an $800,000 advance from the publisher which he used in part to pay off those debts.

In his own defense, Marco Rubio says he knows he’s made financial mistakes, ranging from sloppy bookkeeping to accidentally using the wrong credit card. But anytime any part of what I’ve shared with you right now is brought up, Rubio calls it a political smear.

I hope you know by now that I don’t take part in smearing anyone. But I believe every voter in America who hopes to select our next president, should be extremely clear about who they are voting for.

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio continue to call Ted Cruz a liar. Is he? I’ll answer that in the next Campaign 2016.

How Would Marco Rubio Handle America’s Money? by Ray

How Would Marco Rubio Handle America"s Money? by Ray

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina for President 2016?

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Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina for President 2016?

When Carly Fiorina was hired as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, she was the first woman to take control of a Fortune 100 company.

 

QUOTES

“Having met Vladimir Putin, I wouldn’t talk to him at all. We’ve talked way too much to him.”

—Carly Fiorina

Carleton (Carly) S. Fiorina was born Cara Carleton Sneed in Austin, Texas on September 6, 1954. After dropping out of law school, she became an AT&T management trainee. She moved up the company ladder and became the first female officer in the Network Systems division. In 1998, she was put in charge of Lucent’s Global Service Provider division. A year later, she was tapped as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. After the controversial merger with Compaq Computers didn’t meet expectations, Fiorina was forced to resign. She then became a consultant for Republican candidates.  In 2010, Fiorina made a run for Congress in California. She was defeated in that race, but she then set her sights on the White House. In 2015, Fiorina announced that she was running for the Republican nomination for president.

Early Lifeyouu that is very source is notjust over you I looked at what Wikipedia wrote about read all about these others

When Carly Fiorina told her father, law professor Joseph Tyree Sneed III, that she’d decided to drop out of law school after her first year at UCLA, he shook his head and said he didn’t think she’d amount to much. Two decades later, she’s been named the most powerful woman in American business by Fortune magazine and in 1999 was named president/CEO of one of the world’s most important technology companies, Hewlett-Packard.

Carly, her artist mother, Madelon Montross, and her two siblings moved frequently thanks to her father’s wide-ranging career. She attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana. In college, she studied medieval history and philosophy, and after trying law school, she bounced from job to job, working as a receptionist and teaching English in Italy.  Carly finally signing on as a management trainee at AT&T at age 25. Around this time, AT&T had reached a deal with the government to settle a sexual discrimination lawsuit. The terms of the agreement called for the company to hire more women for management positions. In the coming years, she would earn an MBA from the University of Maryland and a MS degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Ascent at AT&T

Interested in the developing field of network communications, Fiorina surprised her co-workers by joining the male-dominated Network Systems division. At age 35, she became the division’s first female officer, and five years later was named head of North American sales. She combined an appreciation of new technologies with powerful sales instincts, which won the attention of top brass at AT&T. In 1996, the company decided to spin off its Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions into a new company. Carly was tagged to spearhead the effort. Under her guidance, the spin-off, dubbed Lucent, became one of the most successful IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) in U.S. history, raising $3 billion.

Carly’s first marriage ended in divorce. In 1985, she married AT&T executive Frank Fiorina who put his own career on the slow track in order to support hers. He predicted early on that she would run a big company someday, and he pledged to help her. Retired in 1998, he devotes his time to yachting, caring for their dogs, and accompanying Fiorina on business trips.

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Lucent Executive

By 1998, when Fortune dubbed Carly Fiorina the most powerful woman in business, she was president of Lucent’s Global Service Provider division, the company’s core business unit.  Fiorina found success meeting the rising demand for network technology from American businesses. Under her watch, the company’s market share increased in every region for every product.

Some reports, however, indicate that Fiorina’s accomplishments at Lucent may be overstated. A Fortune magazine claimed that the company implemented a number of questionable financial practices during her time there. For instance, a deal with PathNet managed by Fiorina involved loaning them small business money and giving them Lucent equipment at no cost. Writer Scott Woolley explained that “money from the loans began to appear on Lucent’s income statement as new revenue while the dicey debt got stashed on its balance sheet as an allegedly solid asset.” Harvard professor Rakesh Khurana said that “Lucent’s success had more to do with loose credit terms and creative accounting than any reinvention of the company as the Second Coming of Cisco,” according to the New York Times.

Tenure at Hewlett-Packard

In the summer of 1999, Hewlett-Packard took note of Fiorina’s exceptional ability to manage growth in the quickly changing technology field and tagged her to replace retiring president and CEO Lewis Platt. Fiorina achieved the notable distinction of being the first woman to take the lead at a Fortune 20 company. She also made a remarkable deal when making the switch from Lucent to HP. HP gave her $65 million in stock to join the company and leave behind a reported $85 million in Lucent options and stock. But those Lucent shares did not hold their value for long. The company began to unravel not long after Fiorina’s departure.

Fiorina quickly became a highly visible CEO making several major changes at HP: she streamlined operations combining several different units into fewer, more manageable units. She shook up the sales staff with the mandate “shape up or ship out.” Fiorina also helped make HP a leader in charitable giving. She launched HP’s “Technology for Teaching” program and established programs in other countries to “help bridge the digital divide between technology empowered and technology-excluded communities.”

However, Fiorina made a controversial move in the wake of the dotcom bubble bursting. On September 3, 2001, she announced HP’s merger with Compaq Computers, a decision opposed by the HP founders’ sons Walter Hewlett and David Packard. A week later terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, and Fiorina was called on to provide her assistance as HP CEO. Michael Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA), asked Fiorina to provide the NSA with high-tech equipment needed to carry out the surveillance agency’s work in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Fiorina re-routed a retail shipment of HP equipment to the NSA to accommodate this request.

The Compaq merger continued to place Fiorina’s executive decisions in question. A year-and-a-half after the merger, Fiorina claimed victory announcing that HP was a cutting-edge company and industry leader in all business categories. However, business analysts observed that HP really hadn’t changed much. Eighty percent of profit still came from the printer division, morale was down and, in 2004, several top executives left the company.

In January 2005, the Hewlett-Packard board of directors met with Carly Fiorina to discuss the company’s performance. She rejected a proposed plan to transfer her authority to division heads and a month later she resigned as chair and CEO of HP. Her departure was widely covered in the news media with supporters and critics weighing in.

Carly Fiorina at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2015. (Photo: Gage Skidmore, viaWikimedia Commons)

Political Activity

After leaving HP, Fiorina wrote her autobiography Tough Choices in 2006, chronicling her career and views on leadership, women in business, and the role of technology in the world. She was named to several corporate boards including Kellogg Co. and Merck & Co. She also found herself working again with Michael Hayden, who by then had been appointed the director of the Central Intelligence Agency by President George W. Bush. In 2007, Hayden selected Fiorina to chair the CIA’s External Advisory Board. In this role, Fiorina received the highest security clearance and led a board of various experts from different fields, who advised senior CIA leaders on national security issues.

She also became a commentator for Fox News and, in 2008, served as a consultant to John McCain’s 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign. In 2009, Fiorina announced she was running for the U.S. Senate in California. She secured the Republican nomination, running against incumbent Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer in November 2010 election. Boxer emerged victorious after attacking Fiorina for her executive decisions while at Hewlett-Packard including layoffs and job outsourcing. Despite her loss, she continued to advocate for Republican causes.

Presidential Ambitions

In May 4, 2015, Fiorina announced her bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. She announced her plans to run on her record at Hewlett-Packard, citing that her role as CEO gives her solid preparation to make decisions required of a world leader. During her announcement, she reiterated her criticism of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, describing her as a professional politician and questioning her honesty.

It is likely Fiorina will be the only female presidential candidate from the Republican Party. Though considered a long shot by political insiders, many feel that because she is female, she is in a unique position to criticize Clinton without being charged with gender bias. However, her strategy of running on her business record will face questions of her business decisions at HP, the large number of lay-offs made during her tenure, and being forced out by the HP board.

With a crowded field of initially 17 contenders, Fiorina was one of seven candidates with lower poll numbers who participated in an early August forum right before the first Republican debate connected to the 2016 election cycle. Her strong performance at the debate between second-tier candidates made headlines with some political pundits calling her an underdog winner. After the debate Fiorina told Fox News Sunday: “We certainly have seen an uptick in financial support. We’ve seen an uptick in support generally and so, it’s very exciting.”

Fiorina moved up in the polls and was invited to join the main stage for the second Republican debate on September 16. She was the only women in a field of 10 men, and delivered a strong performance that the New York Timescalled “steely, self-assured and at times deeply personal.” Fiorina offered detailed responses regarding her position on U.S. relations with Iran and Russia, defunding Planned Parenthood, and she defended her business record at Hewlitt-Packard. When asked to respond to fellow presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comment about her in Rolling Stone magazine, in which he said “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”, Fiorina said, “I think women all over this country heard really clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina for President 2016?

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina for President 2016?