Transcript of remarks from Maldonado

Below is a transcript of remarks made by state Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) at the Republican National Convention Wednesday evening, as prepared for delivery.

Buenos noches, ladies and gentlemen.

My father, the man I admire most in the world, came to America in 1966 with nothing.

He worked in the fields where he met my mother.

Today, they have a farm on which our whole family works.

We do not get one penny of crop subsidies.

The highest grade my father completed was fourth grade.

But there's also an education, that comes from working with your hands in the dirt.

My father knows more about economics than Senator Obama does with his degrees from all those fancy schools.

My father would be a very good teacher for him.

My father knows first-hand about the basics of economics.

We were sharecroppers.

Growing up, that's how we lived and survived.

The tax increases put forth by Barack Obama would take a bigger share of people's labor than the landowner takes from the sharecropper.

That is not right.

That's not right.

We must never become a nation of sharecroppers for the government.

Yet you've heard from Senator Obama himself all the massive amounts of new spending he plans.

To get the money, he says he will tax the rich.

There aren't that many rich!

Watch out, America, when someone says he's going to tax the rich, you can always bet the middle class will get hit.

When you try to soak the rich, the poor and the middle class get wet.

My father could also teach Senator Obama about growth and prosperity.

After years working for other people, my father started with one-half acre of strawberries of his own.

Today, he exports strawberries and broccoli and lettuce all over the world.

Yet Barack Obama wants to erect trade barriers.

On top of high gas prices, on top of the rising cost-of-living, putting a tariff on foreign goods will increase the price of the products we buy at the store.

That is basically a tax on working people.

I don't think the people who shop at Wal-Mart consider themselves rich.

Senator Obama, come work on our farm.

Come get your hands dirty with real work.

And, on your break sitting in the shade of my father's pick-up truck, he will teach you about economics.

I think you will be a very fast learner.

Finally.

When I was young, my father would put our family's bank savings book in the middle of the kitchen table and say to us,

"You see this little book? This is how much we have in the bank. It doesn't have much money in it today, but it will grow because we have strong values. We respect hard work. And we have good credit."

An America of strong values that respects hard work and good credit is the America of my father ... and it is the America of John McCain.

John McCain believes in encouraging hard work, not taxing it.

John McCain believes in opening markets, not closing them.

You know, John McCain and my father would be good amigos.

Ladies and gentlemen, viva the immigrant story.

Viva the America of my father.

Viva the America of the next president of the United States, El Presidente John McCain.