Pete Hoekstra is a cigarette, and America is a patient with stage-three lung cancer. Hoekstra won’t kill the patient, but he certainly won’t help matters.
With Dick Lugar down and Orrin Hatch on the ropes, local tea parties around the country are brimming with confidence. They should be. Wave elections like 2010 are often followed by even larger waves. The U.S. Senate race in Michigan is another proving ground for the tea party and an opportunity to rid itself of another weak Republican.
The Michigan state GOP and Washington establishment have thrown their lots in with former Congressman Pete Hoekstra. He must be defeated. Here are a few reasons.
1.) Hoekstra voted for H.R. 980: The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2007.
When you understand this one, you won’t need four other reasons.
Effectively, this bill is a steroid shot for unions. It would have forced employers to collectively bargain with unions nationwide. If enacted, every policeman, firefighter and paramedic would certainly be unionized, and their combined collective bargaining would stress municipal and state budgets to the breaking point. Additional stress would have been placed on private employers.
If you like the free market and prosperity, you should loathe this bill. It’s a job killer. If you want Republicans to win elections, you should fear this bill. Public employee unions already put billions of your tax dollars into Democratic Party coffers. This legislation would strengthen unions and help them recruit, dumping billions more into the unholy, never-ending cycle of your tax dollars becoming public employee union dues and then contributions to Democratic campaigns. In the end, support for this bill amounts to support for the Democratic Party and its policies, because passing the bill would help Democrats get elected.
Thankfully, the bill was defeated. But Pete Hoekstra voted for it. (It’s no wonder he has earned the endorsement of Jimmy Hoffa Jr.)
2.) Hoekstra voted for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout.
It still staggers the imagination.
In brief, here’s what happened: Our dumb government told banks to lend money to poor people so that they could buy houses. Poor people took the loans and bought houses. Our dumb government then guaranteed the security of the loans, despite the borrowers’ inability to make payments. With that guarantee, Wall Street packaged and sold bad mortgages to nearly every investor on the planet. Then the loans went bad, and Pete Hoekstra voted to reward stupid investors, provide cover for the government’s idiocy and claim heroics while doing so for “saving” our financial system. Hoekstra’s vote saved us from a government-spawned problem that began, ballooned and exploded during his watch.
The bailout didn’t fix anything. It didn’t save anyone. It was a bonfire with nearly a trillion of your tax dollars. It also set a dangerous precedent by allowing the government to meddle in the free market. Though Hoekstra wasn’t the only Republican to vote for this bill, his vote remains inexcusable.
