Democratic Presidential Candidate Martin O’Malley was in Burlington Sunday afternoon at a local union hall to ask Iowa supporters to caucus for him February 1st.
O’Malley was the Governor of Maryland for eight years before he decided to run for president and he makes a distinction between himself and the other two democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, saying that his background is not based on the “Washington gridlock scene”, nor was he ever a senator or in congress.
“But my background is the background of an executive, a mayor and governor. Bringing people together, getting things done. Realizing that I have a responsibility to get to know the Republician members of the Legislature just as well as I get to know the Democratic members of the Legislature, because you never know what the combination of votes is going to be on any given issue coming up. My experience is the experience of actions,” says O’Malley.
O’Malley says that as Governor of Maryland he was able to increase school funding which lead to earning a number one ranking for Maryland public schools for five consecutive years. He says that he also worked to decrease violent crime and reduce the incarceration rate. O’Malley gives further examples of his success as Governor saying that he “Defended the highest medium income in the country. Triple A bond Rating. And the US Chamber of Commerce named us the number one in innovation and entrepreneurship because along the way we did what America does best and that is to include more of our people, more fully in economic, social and political life that we share.”
It’s these principals based on collaboration and innovation that he wants to take with him to the white house.
O’Malley believes that raising the national minimum wage to $15, increasing the overtime threshold and restoring the collective bargaining power plays a crucial role in improving the economy.
He says that out of the three Democratic presidential candidates he was the only one to “balance the budget every year for the last 15 years.”
As president, O’Malley has the ambitious goal of making America 100 percent clean energy powered by 2050, he says he can do that by extending the invester tax credits for solar and wind energy by 20 years and by putting a stop to subsidizing fossil fuel extractions.
