Calling out federal waste and foreign aid subsidies while pointing to his own record of bucking party leadership in Tallahassee, GOP 14th congressional district nominee Mike Beltran promises to bring a sharp litigator’s cross-examination to Washington’s budget crisis.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital detailing his bid to unseat 20-year Democratic incumbent Kathy Castor, the former Florida state representative laid out a case rooted in strict fiscal accountability, pledged to challenge even Republican leadership on bloated federal budgets, and warned of the Democrats' embrace of socialism.
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Beltran argues that despite her lengthy tenure on Capitol Hill, the people of Tampa Bay have not been served well by Kathy Castor.
"People in Tampa Bay have precious little to show for Kathy Castor's two decades of incumbency. She's had no major legislative initiatives. All she's really done is rename post offices. And all that's likely to happen if we reelect her is for her to rename every post office from Tampa to Timbuktu.
"She votes with her party over 90% of the time, including radical socialists. She voted in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and she's poised to elect the Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. And Speaker Hakeem Jeffries would appoint a Chair Raskin, a Chair Omar, a Chair Cortez, and those folks would push radical policies in Congress that are completely out of line with what Tampa families need."
Beltran argues that in the Florida Legislature he served as an independent conservative voice, not automatically beholden to party leadership, and pledges to continue that approach in Washington.
"I've had the courage to vote against special interests even when my own party had lost its way. I've voted against insurance companies, home builders, trial lawyers, I voted against various special interests…whenever somebody was doing something that wasn't good for Tampa families.
"And I had that bipartisan record throughout my time, starting in 2019 and continuing through to 2024, unlike my opponent who discovered bipartisanship merely weeks ago. So I'm always going to do what's best for the communities that I represent, regardless of party, regardless of special interests, regardless of pressure. And that's what I'm proud of, having that independent voting record."
Beltran argues that the United States needs to reexamine its military and geopolitical relationships, with an eye to fiscal prudence:
"It cannot be a one-sided exchange. You cannot have a wealthy country like Germany spend under 2% of GDP on their military when we're spending over 5% of our GDP on our military budgets, about a trillion dollars. And a lot of that is spent overseas protecting other wealthy countries.
"You see Ukraine and Israel, they're defending themselves from their adversaries. They're doing a good job of that. But we are borrowing $2 trillion a year from countries like China. And that's causing inflation. And what that says is that we don't have money to be sending, particularly to wealthy allies like Germany and Spain.
"These are countries where we have bases, where we've had trouble getting basing privileges or overflight rights for the conflicts that we do need to engage in. And we shouldn't be subsidizing them anymore.
"You see Israel spends over 10% of GDP on defense, as does South Korea. Those countries are carrying the weight of their own defense, but we don't see that from all of our NATO allies. And they're a lot closer to these rogue states, to these conflict regions than we are. They should be doing more, and they're doing less, and that's unacceptable."
As an attorney, Beltran makes the case that he will bring a strong skill-set to Capitol Hill, to do away with business as usual and to fight for the citizens of Hillsborough County:
"My legal skills are quite good. I'm a good cross examiner. I'll be good at scrutinizing witnesses who come before committees that I serve on. I've litigated in the federal courts, so I know the federal statutes. I know issues that need to be redressed. I know how to write statutes so that they can be easily applied by judges, so that attorneys can counsel their clients on what the law is and what they need to do to comply with that.
"I'm proud to be a practicing attorney. I've helped a lot of businesses and individuals throughout Tampa Bay for almost 20 years.
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"And my opponent is also an attorney, but she hasn't practiced in a very long time. She was, I think, a land use attorney, she says, before she was a county commissioner. But I don't think she brings that same skill-set. I've never seen her cross-examine a witness to any effect. And I haven't seen her apply her legal skills to any legislative initiative. In fact, it's kind of difficult to identify anything that she's enacted that's of any particular value to Tampa or otherwise."
Kathy Castor has repeatedly voted against the interests of ordinary Americans in Florida's 14th district, Beltran argues:
"Well, she opposed tax cuts for the middle class and working class and retirees. She opposed removing taxes on tips, removing taxes on Social Security, removing taxes on overtime.
"And she wanted to pay, through taxpayer funds, for trans surgeries for children. And that was a very recent vote. That wasn't something that we have to reach into ancient history to find. And I opposed that.
"I see no reason why a single mother here in Hillsborough County should be paying taxes to pay for trans surgeries for minors while she actually is being taxed on her overtime or her tips."
Beltran pledges to confront the leadership of his own party if he disagrees with their policies, but also notes he will work with Democrats:
"Obviously, we've had Republicans who have also spent too much money. And so I'm going to go to Washington. I'm going to work with my party, and I'll work across the aisle, and I'll work with any administration that's in power to identify waste, fraud, and abuse, identify unnecessary government programs, identify savings, and identify cost controls, and make sure that we are the fiscal conservatives that we say we are.
"That's what's necessary to save this country because we need to balance the budget and we need pay down the debt and we need to live within our means, because if we don't balance our budget, then the budget will be balanced for us and it will be done when somebody cuts off our credit and people stop lending to us."
Finally, as democratic socialist candidates have won Democratic primaries across the nation and in Florida, Beltran notes that Castor has consistently refused to condemn socialist ideology, or candidates with such views in her own party.
"We see Kathy Castor, who's embraced Angie Nixon, who is one of those avowed socialist candidates. She said that her party was a big tent party, and that needs to be a very big tent to accommodate Angie Nixon…I'm not sure I'd like to be in a tent of any size with her, but my opponent welcomes her with open arms.
"And she's going to vote in lockstep with these socialists, first to elect Hakeem Jeffries and then to appoint these socialists to committee chairmanships. She's done very little to distance herself from the radicals within her party. Even as she masquerades recently as a moderate, she will empower the socialists.
"And that's really what's at stake in November. It's not just me, it's not just Kathy Castor, it is the direction of the country and whether we're going to embrace these radical policies, or whether we are going to have economic growth and prosperity and safety here in the United States."