MOUNT VERNON – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Gibbons said the country’s spending is out of control and President Joe Biden is acting irresponsibly during a campaign visit to Mount Vernon and Knox County on Thursday.
Gibbons counts every visit to Mount Vernon and Knox County as a bit of a homecoming because he graduated from Kenyon College.
“I am going to relentlessly attempt to tell the truth and counter a lot of the narrative that the Democrats seem to believe,” he told the Mount Vernon News.
Federal spending is out of control, he said. The country is only seeing the beginnings of inflation and it will hit more heavily over the next year or two, the investment banker said.
“We're in uncharted territory here, but we need to get our spending under control,” Gibbons said. “We need to secure our borders. And I would stand in favor of finishing the wall, because the way our laws are right now, the wall is the only solution.”
President Biden is acting irresponsibly, Gibbons said. He said 150 million to 750 million people in the world would drop everything they are doing to move to the U.S. – which he also said would destroy the country.
“He just offered them an invitation to come across our southern border,” he said. “And that's a huge problem.”
Gibbons also warned that he believes wokism is a great danger to the country.
Ohio needs the federal government to not stand in its way, he said. The state hasn’t done a good job keeping taxes low and regulations under control.
“We're the most regulated state in the nation as far as the volume of regulations that we have to deal with,” he said.
The economy will pick up in Ohio just as the economy picked up under the Trump administration when taxes were lower and needless regulations were eliminated, Gibbons said.
Expect change in Washington, D.C. if he is right about the political climate.
“I think the Biden administration has been so inept that I think we're gonna see substantial majorities in the next November election go to the Republicans,” he said.
The country has ignored the U.S. Constitution for a long time, he said, and he wants to help fix that. He wants government out of health care as much as possible. Consumers pay 40% more than any other country for health care, he said. He blames crony capitalism and a lack of transparency when it comes to billing.
The U.S. Department of Education should not exist, he said. There are 5,000 people being paid in Washington who have never educated one kid, but issue federal education mandates, he said.
Gibbons said he achieved the American dream, growing a middle market investment company. That afforded him the time to campaign. His five children are a big reason he decided to get into politics. It took one of his sons joining the Navy as a pilot to defend the country to prompt his political aspirations.
When fellow Republican Rob Portman decided not to run for reelection to the U.S. Senate, he was approached to run for the seat.
A recent poll conducted for his campaign showed him 3.5 points ahead of all other Republican primary candidates, Gibbons said.
“I am a constitutional conservative without apology,” he said. “I'm not a politician. I'm a businessman. And I want to restore the American values that made this country the envy of the world.”
The only way he sees to do that is to convince people who don’t like our country right now – which he said includes the entire Democratic Party – that they're making a mistake.
INFORMATION SIDEBAR:
Here’s a brief resume of Mike Gibbons, Ohio U.S. Senate candidate:
EDUCATION: Played football at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland; earned degrees from Kenyon College, Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.
BUSINESS: Launched Brown Gibbons Lang & Company, an investment firm; became managing partner of the Cleveland Crunch professional soccer franchise; served as co-owner of two companies, Cheboygan Tap & Tool and Northern Lake Properties; honored as Entrepreneur of the Year for NE Ohio from Ernst & Young in 2002.
POLITICS: Served as Ohio finance co-chair for Donald J. Trump for President in 2016; supported Trump's 2020 reelection campaign; endorsed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
PERSONAL: Mike and his wife, Diane, raised five children; Mike coached youth sports and still serves as the color commentator for “Catholic High School Game of the Week” football games.
QUOTABLE QUOTE: “We need to radically transform and counter the lies that this country has endured this past year. We must demonstrate peace through strength and respect our rights from almighty God."
