Republican David Harmer quoted the liberal blog Calitics in a new, poorly-produced television advertisement. The ad includes two attacks on John Garamendi on healthcare.
The ad cites this answer from Garamendi in an interview with David Dayen last August:
DD: What are the pluses and minuses of putting this in the hands of the Feds?
JG: If it’s a federal process, you’d have to set up a massive new federal bureaucracy. In the positive sense. But you have to have a police force, because otherwise, the insurers won’t do it. That’s a major, expensive undertaking for the federal government. There’s an advantage to the existing mechanism in that it already exists, like with Medicare or Medicaid. However, you mentioned some of the problems with how the regulation changes depending on the state. So both options have shortcomings. Either way, if we have a bill based on insurance reform, it has to be dealt with. And I’ve been dealing with these companies for eight years of my life. I know how to do this.
The sourcing on the second attack came from Garamendi’s announcement last year that he was running for governor and, in the article Harmer’s campaign cited, Garamendi wasn’t directly quoted as saying, “without apology,” as the ad suggests.
Garamendi laid out broad goals of establishing universally available healthcare through a publicly financed insurance system, bolstering the state’s universities and pursuing aggressive reductions in carbon emissions. He said he would resolve perennial budget stalemates through a combination of spending cuts, systemic reforms and — without apology — tax increases.
The only sources claiming it is a direct quote are the Marin County GOP, Yolo County GOP, Fresno County GOP, San Diego County GOP, California’s Right to Life Committee, and the Breitbart right-wing attack site, Big Government.
Conclude what you will about those organizations’ agendas.
To be clear, Garamendi continues to support tax increases on the wealthy as he did while running for governor but the Harmer campaign and Republicans want to make unsuspecting voters believe Garamendi wants to raise taxes across the board, which is just false.
