Fiorina says she’ll break gridlock

ONAWA - Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told northwest Iowa supporters Thursday that some of what she's learned - from experiences that didn't pan out as planned - is fueling her desire and ability to win the presidency in 2016.

Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, spoke to 40 people at the Onawa Public Library. She said she's a leader who can make Republicans quit talking about change and actually enact key conservative policies, such as a big reduction in federal government scope.

Fiorina said that's important because Republicans won big in the 2014 midterm elections, but despite seizing both chambers of Congress, the GOP lawmakers haven't pushed back strongly against the Democratic president.

'What has changed? Nothing,” she said.

Fiorina said it is troubling that the size of government has grown over the past 50 years, even when Republicans were president.

'Just putting Republicans where Democrats were is not enough,” she said.

In response to a question from an audience member, Fiorina said she learned important lessons from her disappointing loss in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in California, where Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer won re-election.

'We forced the Democrats to spend $34 million to defend what they thought was a safe seat,” Fiorina said.

More important, she said, was that there is no need 'to tack to the center” to win elections. Also, it is vitally important to have a 'ground game” that turns supporters into voters.

Fiorina said she would set an austere tone for lawmakers to follow.

She said an estimated 240,000 federal employees are anticipated to retire in the next four years, and 'I'm not going to replace a single one.”

Fiorina spoke extensively about her support for a change to zero-based budgeting, in which federal agencies would have to defend all spending sought for a fiscal year. Fiorina said a House bill to require zero-based budgeting has languished because representatives are afraid of having pet projects go unfunded.